Tea at Trianon: Reasons for Using a Nom de Plume

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Reasons for Using a Nom de Plume

Some advice from a literary agent. Share

1 comment:

Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

It is a helpful article!

I know the Romance author Julia Quinn chose her pen name because she wanted her books to be shelved next to Amanda Quick's novels, which were really popular at the time Quinn's own first book came out. (I'm not sure if Quinn's success can be traced to that decision, but it didn't hurt!)

And I read one aspiring author's blog which had a sort-of related post a few weeks ago. She uses her full name (second name "Messenger") to blog about her own quest to revise her novel, find an agent, get published, etc. Well, she recently googled it . . . and discovered that she shares a name with a designer messenger bag! =P; September 28, 2010 at 11:12:00 AM EDT