20th-century pseudonymous writers

Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( say-LEEN, French: [lwi fɛʁdinɑ̃ selin] ), was a French novelist, polemicist, and physician. His first novel Journey to the End of the Night (1932) won the Prix Renaudot but divided critics due to the author's pessimistic depiction of the human condition and his writing style based on working-class speech. In subsequent novels such as Death on the Installment Plan (1936), Guignol's Band (1944) and Castle to Castle (1957) Céline further developed an innovative and distinctive literary style. Maurice Nadeau wrote: "What Joyce did for the English language...what the surrealists attempted to do for the French language, Céline achieved effortlessly and on a vast scale."From 1937 Céline wrote a series of antisemitic polemical works in which he advocated a military alliance with Nazi Germany. He continued to publicly espouse antisemitic views during the German occupation of France, and after the Allied landing in Normandy in 1944, he fled to Germany and then Denmark where he lived in exile. He was convicted of collaboration by a French court in 1951 but was pardoned by a military tribunal soon after. He returned to France where he resumed his careers as a doctor and author. Céline is widely considered to be one of the greatest French novelists of the 20th century but remains a controversial figure in France due to his antisemitism and activities during the Second World War.

David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is an American politician, white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. From 1989 to 1992, he was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for the Republican Party. His politics and writings are largely devoted to promoting conspiracy theories about Jews, such as Holocaust denial and Jewish control of academia, the press, and the financial system. In 2013, the Anti-Defamation League called Duke "perhaps America's most well-known racist and anti-Semite".Duke unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic candidate for state legislature during the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in his campaign for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination. After failing to gain any traction within the Democratic Party, he gained the presidential nomination of the minor Populist Party. In December 1988, he became a Republican and claimed to have become a born-again Christian, nominally renouncing antisemitism and racism. He soon won his only elected office, a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives. He then ran unsuccessful but competitive campaigns for several more offices, including United States Senate in 1990 and governor of Louisiana in 1991. His campaigns were denounced by national and state Republican leaders, including President George H. W. Bush. He mounted a minor challenge to President Bush in 1992.
By the late 1990s, Duke had abandoned his pretense of rejecting racism and antisemitism, and began to openly promote racist and neo-Nazi viewpoints. He then began to devote himself to writing about his political views, both in newsletters and later on the Internet. In his writings, he denigrates African Americans and other ethnic minorities, and promotes conspiracy theories about a Jewish plot to control America and the world. He continued to run for public office through 2016, but after his reversion to open neo-Nazism, his candidacies were not competitive.
During the 1990s, Duke defrauded his political supporters by pretending to be in dire financial straits and soliciting money for basic necessities. At the time, he was in fact financially secure and used the money for recreational gambling. In December 2002, Duke pleaded guilty to felony fraud and subsequently served a 15-month sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Big Spring in Texas.

Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise (he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original teleplay), his A Boy and His Dog cycle (which was made into a film), and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". He was also editor and anthologist for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos, Nebulas, and Edgars.

Anton Szandor LaVey (born Howard Stanton Levey; April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997) was an American author, musician, and Satanist. He was the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of Satanism. He authored several books, including The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, The Satanic Witch, The Devil's Notebook, and Satan Speaks! In addition, he released three albums, including The Satanic Mass, Satan Takes a Holiday, and Strange Music. He played a minor on-screen role and served as technical advisor for the 1975 film The Devil's Rain and served as host and narrator for Nick Bougas' 1989 mondo film Death Scenes.Historian of Satanism Gareth J. Medway described LaVey as a "born showman", with anthropologist Jean La Fontaine describing him as a "colourful figure of considerable personal magnetism". The academic scholars of Satanism Per Faxneld and Jesper Aagaard Petersen described LaVey as "the most iconic figure in the Satanic milieu". LaVey was labeled many things by journalists, religious detractors, and Satanists alike, including "The Father of Satanism", the "St. Paul of Satanism", "The Black Pope", and the "evilest man in the world".

Guido da Verona (the pseudonym of Guido Verona; 7 May 1881 – 5 April 1939) was an Italian poet and novelist.
Born in Saliceto Panaro to a Jewish family, Verona started his career as a poet in 1901 with the poetry collection Commemorazione del fatto d'arme di Brichetto, followed by I frammenti d'un poema (1902) and Bianco amore (1907).He gained a larger popularity as a novelist, starting from 1911 when he published his first novel Colei che non si deve amare, considered among the most representative examples of the Italian Feuilleton. He later was the most commercially successful Italian writer between 1914 and 1939: particularly his novel Mimì Bluette, fiore del mio giardino, which reached 300,000 copies in 1922, an impressive run in Italy where illiteracy characterized the majority of the population.He was a signatory to the Manifesto of Fascist intellectuals in 1925; in 1929 he published a parody novel of Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed, that actually was an implicit satire against fascism.He became an intellectual unpopular with the Fascist regime and marginalized after the approval of racial laws. Da Verona committed suicide in Milan at age 57.

Serge Fuster (pen name "Casamayor"; 28 November 1911 in Algiers, French Algeria – 29 October 1988 in Paris ) was a French judge and writer. He wrote over twenty books, primarily essays on justice.
During World War II, in 1940, Fuster was a lieutenant in Sedan. When the war ended, Fuster participated in the Nuremberg Trials, as part of the French delegation, led by Edgar Faure and François de Menthon.
Beginning in the 1950s Fuster began writing for the journal Esprit under the nom-de-plume of "Casamayor", a name he would use for the next thirty years.
Fuster ended his judicial career as President of the Chamber at the Court of Appeal of Versailles. Upon his death, he was given many tributes, including ones by President François Mitterrand, Prime Minister Michel Rocard, and Justice Pierre Arpaillange.

Evelyn Sibley Lampman (April 18, 1907 - June 13, 1980) was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction. Some of her work was published under the pseudonyms Jane Woodfin and Lynn Bronson.

T. J. Bass, real name Thomas J. Bassler, MD (July 7, 1932 – December 13, 2011) was an American science fiction author and physician, having graduated from the University of Iowa in 1959. Bassler is also known for his controversial claim that nonsmokers who are able to complete a marathon in under four hours can eat whatever they wish and never suffer a fatal heart attack.John Robbins has noted that Jim Fixx approvingly quoted Bassler in his best-selling book, The Complete Book of Running. Fixx died from heart failure at 52 while running.Two of Bass' novels, Half Past Human (1971) and The Godwhale (1974), were nominated for the Nebula Award. In both his books the Hive was a three trillion population of 'nebishes' - humans who had four toes and all aggressiveness bred out of them.

Gabriele Tergit (pseudonym for Elise Reifenberg née Hirschmann) (4 March 1894 – 25 July 1982) was a German-born British writer and journalist. She became known primarily for her court reports, and as a writer, for her novel Käsebier conquers the Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm; in translation published under the title Käsebier Takes Berlin). Tergit served as secretary of the PEN-Center of German-language Authors Abroad. Tergit was the mother of mathematician Ernst Robert Reifenberg.

Heinz Rein (pseudonym: Reinhard Andermann) was an influential German novelist writing before and after the Second World War. He became a major figure in the "rubble literature" period, and his famous novel Berlin Finale, published in 1947, was one of the first bestsellers of the German rebuilding period.