What's in a name
We've been watching reruns of Hamish Macbeth on ABC2 recently.
The series finished last week, but I've been looking for the books the series was based on. Reading in Wikepedia about the author M. C. Beaton, I was surprised to learn that she's actually a woman. M. C. stands for Marion Chesney, her real name and the one she's used for the Agatha Raisin series of mystery novels.
This got me to thinking about other female novelists that have created popular male characters and I noticed a pattern emerging. J. K. Rowling created Harry Potter. Agatha Christie created Hercule Poirot.
Okay, maybe I'm reading more into this than there really is, but if I ever write a series of crime novels, they're going to have a female main character and her name will start with an H. How can I lose.
Can anyone else think of more examples? Come to think of it, have you ever been surprised to find a popular writer you admired turned out to be the opposite sex to what you'd assumed?
7 comments:
I can't think of any of my favourite authors that turned out to be the opposite sex - except for the Nee Naw blog. That was a bit of a surprise to me.
Me too, actually I was going to mention the Nee Naw blog. I have Mark... er... Suzi as a friend on Facebook and the profile even says male.
Bryce Courtenay has writen from the woman's pint-of-view. Novels like "Silvia" and in several of his other novels. - Dave
The first time I ever heard of Bryce Courtney, years ago, I thought Bryce was a woman's name. It might have been because of his novel, "Jessica".
He's a guy real enough Steve, and is part Australian part South African. He's my favourite author. - Dave
G'day Steve -
- long time no see! The one that springs instantly to mind is Richmal Crompton, who wrote the Just William series for about 50 years; I always thought she was a man from the name (shows what I know), and, come to think of it, Ellis Peters, who wrote the Brother Cadfael stories, was actually Edith Pargeter, who I think wrote other material under her own name. Sorry to trash the 'H' theory, tho... John F
I was a big fan of the Just William series when I was a kid, but if you asked me who wrote it I couldn't tell you. Ok, I could now because you just told me, but not back then.
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