The List : Another Name

Ever heard of John Swithen, Jeffrey Hudson, Deanna Dwyer or Rosamond Smith? Not many have, but it's a sure bet that most people will have read at least one of their books.

It's common knowledge that the journalist and man of letters Eric Arthur Blair achieved fame for his novels under the nom de plume George Orwell, while, as Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie published a series of sub-standard romances. Ruth "Inspector Wexford" Rendell produces police procedurals, but her psychological thrillers are written under the pen name Barbara Vine.

Cambridge academic and poet laureate Cecil Day Lewis supplemented his earnings by penning excellent mystery novels featuring the gentleman detective Nigel Strangeways, and everyone knows that Richard Bachman is none other than the horror-meister supreme Stephen King. Only King fanatics are aware, however, that King has also gone under the alias John Swithen.

Lauren Kelly and Rosamond Smith, writers of murder mysteries, are not on the top of anyone's TBR list - yet Joyce Carol Oates (pictured), the actual author, is one of America's most renowned writers and a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Jeffrey Hudson - together with John Lange and Michael Douglas (the one who isn't married to Catherine Zeta Jones) - is another name for that great writer of techno-thrillers, the late Michael Crichton.

In the days when having an obviously Jewish name was a handicap rather than an asset, Allen Stewart Konigsberg was quick to change his name to Woody Allen, while Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum transformed herself into Ayn (the Hebrew word for "eye") Rand, later achieving cult status through her novels, notably The Fountainhead.

Dr Barbara Mertz was an archaeologist with a popular book on Egyptology under her belt when she started writing romantic suspense under the name Barbara Michaels, and thrillers as Elizabeth Peters. As with Cecil Day Lewis, no one connected the young don with the author of low-brow novels.

Howard Allen Frances O'Brien was the daughter of an alcoholic - which might account for her masculine name, which the little girl changed to Anne as soon as she went to school. After marrying the poet Stan Rice, she completed a masters degree in creative writing before going on to write Interview with a Vampire, the first of many Vampire Chronicles, under the pen name Anne Rice.

A final prolific - and prolifically named - author is Dean Koontz, who also dabbles in other genres under the guises of Deanna Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Brian Coffey and Gerda Ann Cerra, to give but a few of his many pen names.

So don't despair if you think you have exhausted the oeuvre of your favourite author: whole shelves of titles may still be out there waiting to delight and entertain you, lurking under a pseudonym.