A pen name (nom de plume, or literary double) is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of his or her works in place of their "real" name. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her previous works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her writings, to combine more than one author into a single author, or for any of a number of reasons related to the marketing or aesthetic presentation of the work. The author's name may be known only to the publisher, or may come to be common knowledge.

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