Volume 1

Dictionary of anonymous and pseudonymous English literature / Samuel Halkett and John Laing.

  • Samuel Halkett
Date:
1926-[1962]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dictionary of anonymous and pseudonymous English literature / Samuel Halkett and John Laing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    concealment is continued : “ T. H. C.,” the writer of A Descriptive tour in Scotland (1840) is Chauncey Hare Townshend; and twofold reversal is seen in Ananga Ranga, or the Hindu art of love, translated by A. F. F. [Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot] and B. F. R. [Sir Richard Francis Burton] (1885). In many such cases, the reversal betrays special desire on the part of the writer to remain undiscovered. An ingenious American lady, Julia Louisa Matilda Woodruff, appears in her many works, Holden with cords (1874), Belle Rue, or the Story of Rolf (1891), etc., as “ W. M. L. Jay.” (ii) More rarely, but doubtless more effectively, because unex¬ pectedly, some writers have occasionally used the last letters of their names when desirous of confining knowledge of their authorship to a favoured few. This course was adopted by Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, who signed “ T. T. ” at the close of his Answer to Mr Henry Payne's Letter concerning his Majesty's Declaration of Indulgence (1686?); by Robert Boyle, who published, in 1675, Some considerations about the reconcileableness of reason with revelation, and subscribed himself, “ T. E., a layman ”; by Thomas Elrington, Bishop of Fearns and Leighlin, who, by similarly appending “ S. N. ” to A Reply to fohn Search's Considerations on the laiv of Libel (1834), and to other prints, made it known only to intimate friends that he was the author; in like manner, the Rev. Michael Augustus Gathercole, published Letters to a Dissenting minister of the Congre¬ gational Independent Denomination (1833), and subscribed himself “L. S. E. further, “ N. Y. ” is all that John Dury has given of his name on the title-page of his Discourse representing the liberty of conscience that is practised in foreign parts (1661). Still more effective, as a means of concealment adopted by some writers, has been the selection, from their names, not of the first or the last letters in each part of the whole name, but of letters taken, in each portion, at the same distance from the beginning. So rarely has this course been followed that few instances are found. In The Diary of a dutiful son, by “ H. E. O.,” these capitals are the second letters in each portion of the name of the author, Thomas George Fonnereau. Another example is that of Dr Richard Bentley, who, in 1721, issued a pamphlet, entitled Dr Bentley's proposals for printing a new edition of the New Testament ... by a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, and appended, in a note, are the second letters in each part of his name, “J. E.” (iii) Readers nowadays are well provided by printers with reasonable punctuation, by means of which there is separation made between initials of personal names, in capital letters, and additions to these, also in capital letters, prefixed or affixed, designed to convey information regarding the individual. But when one comes to deal with works printed in the eighteenth century or earlier, these additions are frequently made without the separating marks now