Anonymity

the long version

"Some of the greatest works in English literature were first published without their authors' names. Why did so many authors want to be anonymous and what was it like to read their books without knowing for certain who had written them? In Anonymity, John Mullan gives a history of hidden identity in English literature. From the sixteenth century to today, he explores how the disguises of writers were first used and eventually penetrated, how anonymity teased readers and bamboozled critics - and how, when book reviews were also anonymous, reviewers played tricks of their own in return."--Jacket.