«Comment signer maintenant?» Le pseudonyme raconté par les femmes de lettres (1830–1870)

Abstract

The use of pseudonyms was a common practice among the ever-growing number of women writers in the nineteenth century, although the elusive nature of the phenomenon makes it difficult to ascertain its importance and frequency. A comparative analysis of the discourse on authorship and identity in the personal writings of four women novelists and memoirists—George Sand, Marie d'Agoult, Delphine de Girardin, and the Comtesse Dash, all of whom adopted, at least temporarily, a masculine nom de plume—reveals conflicted and often contradictory representations of the pseudonymic figure. While some authors, like Sand, Agoult, and to a certain extent Girardin, clearly saw the pseudonym as a means to achieve literary legitimacy and agency, others like the Comtesse Dash remained under the “cover” of their pseudonyms, as they fell into a form of anonymity while struggling to make a name for themselves.