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 Ann Radcliffe Mary Ann Radcliffe Mary Ann Radcliffe (1746 – 1818) was an important British figure in the early feminist movement. She was born Mary Ann Clayton in Nottingham, the elder daughter of a successful Anglican merchant James Clayton and his Catholic wife Sarah Blatherwick and christened at St Nicholas Nottingham on 18 June 1746. James Clayton was already 70 at the time of Mary Ann's birth and died when she was four. Mary Ann's sister Sarah predeceased him leaving Mary Ann as his heiress. Radcliffe was raised as a Catholic by her mother and educated at the Bar Convent in York.