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 Evans Thorne Mary Evans Thorne Mary Evans Thorne (c. 1740/1-after 1813) was one of the first women to have a leadership role in the Methodist movement in the United States. She was appointed class leader, a layperson who performed pastoral duties, by Joseph Pilmore in Philadelphia in about 1770. Mary Evans was born around 1740-41 in Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Thomas and Diana Evans. Her parents, who were of Welsh heritage, moved to New Bern, North Carolina, where Thomas died. Her mother remarried James Mills in 1767. Evans joined the Baptists in North Carolina when she was 23 and married James