Pen name accepted by publishers and/or the public. Such is the case of Peru's Clarinda, whose work was published in the early 17th century. More often, women have adopted masculine pen names. This was common in the 19th century, when women were beginning to make inroads into literature but, it was felt, would not be taken as seriously by readers as male authors. For example, Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name George Eliot; and Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baronne Dudevant, used the pseudonym George Sand. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë published under the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell respectively.
Mary Forbes Evans Mary Forbes Evans Mary Forbes Evans (née Lander, 5 May 1936 – 29 June 2010) was a British writer, collector and the co-founder, with her husband Hilary Evans, of the Mary Evans Picture Library. She was born Caroline Mary Forbes Lander on 5 May 1936 at 8 Cotswold Gardens, Hendon, London, the youngest of four daughters of Digby Forbes Lander (1891–1969), an aircraft works accounts clerk, and his wife, Norah Doris Caroline Lander, née Williams (1898–1970). She lived in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, before moving to Southern Rhodesia at the age of seven. She met her future husband Hilary Agard Evans (1929–2011),