Ed,
Re your question below:
> I've been reading the Tom Nolan biography of
Ross
> Macdonald and
> ran across a reference to William Irish, who
like
> RM, published
> in the early MANHUNT issues. In the archives, I
see
> that
> William Irish was a Cornell Woolrich pseudonym.
I
> wondered why.
> Did established crime/mystery fiction writers
use
> assumed names
> to publish under in pulps, like MANHUNT?
Actually Woolrich adopted the "Irish" pseudonym for his novel
PHANTOM LADY, which was written long after he'd established
himself in the pulps as "Woolrich." The story is that his
publisher thought that since there was already a Woolrich
title, BLACK ALIBI, coming out that same year (1942), it
might be better if PHANTOM LADY was released under a pen name
so that he wouldn't look too prolific.
Supposedly the editor said, "You could use an ethnic name.
Something French or Irish or - . . . "
Woolrich interrupted him at that moment and said,
"That's it. Make it Irish. William Irish."
How much of that story is true and how much apocryphal I have
no idea.
Francis M. Nevins's mammoth biography of Woolrich, FIRST YOU
DREAM THEN YOU DIE, would probably have the real skinny on
why he adopted pen names for certain books and stories and
not for others.
Ultimately, in his lifetime, Woolrich published nine novels
and six short story collections under his own name, four
novels and eleven short story collections as Irish (some of
the short stories in those collections might have originally
appeared as by Woolrich), and two novels as George Hopley
(Woolrich's full name was "Cornell George
Hopley-Woolrich").
JIM DOHERTY
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