Curious Pseudonyms
Count O’Blather (Flann O’Brien) Comic writer Flann O’Brien produced a monthly magazine in the 1930s under the title Blather, which he claimed was the work of one Count O’Blather and his simple-minded son Blazes. Flann O’Brien was also a pseudonym, although a less outlandish one, of the real author, Brian O’Nolan.
Hilarius Bogbinder (Søren Kierkegaard) The Danish philosopher used many weird pseudonyms during his career, including this one, and regularly used one nom de plume to review books he had written under another.
Corno di Bassetto (George Bernard Shaw) Shaw used this pseudonym, which is an Italian term for a type of clarinet, when he was producing regular music criticism in the 1880s and 1890s for the London press.
Miss Tickletoby (William Makepeace Thackeray) Before he made his name with his novels, Thackeray published comic sketches and essays under countless pseudonyms. ‘Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History’ appeared in Punch in 1842.
Gom Gut (Georges Simenon) The awesomely prolific crime novelist Georges Simenon published hundreds of novels, some written in a matter of days, under pseudonyms such as Gom Gut, Luc Dorsan and Christian Brulls.