INIRODUCT1ON TO THE FIRST EDITION<br >We had a bottle of port for dinner， and drank dear Willie s health. He<br >said， Oh， by the by， did I tell you I ve cut my first name William， and<br >taken the second name Lupin? In .fact， I m only known at Oldham as<br >Lupin Pooter. If you were to "Willie" me there， they wouldn t know<br >what you meant."<br > The names wished on us by our parents don t always please， and lots<br >of people fiddle ahout varying the order of the components to suit<br >themselves better; or they manage to get themselves nicknamed. The<br >Grossmiths， in the piece quoted above from The diary of a nobody，<br >satirised this harmless foible-but quite gently. And they did allow<br >young W L Poorer， who could not come to terms with life as a Willie，<br >to prosper as Lupin. His champagne flows at the end of the book.<br >Choosing a pen-name<br >Authors are great name-fiddlers， and many have l~erformed quite drastic<br >nomenectomies in order to achieve a satisfactory pseudonym. Arthur<br >Elliott Elliott-Cannon lopped off Arthur and the spare Elliott; Reginald<br >David Stanley Courtney-Browne excised his three forenames， and most<br >understandably， Richard Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes writes<br >as Richard Fiennes.<br > Many people would like to adopt an entirely new name， but most of<br >them are inhibited by family and friends， business and other<br >encumbrances. In the separate world of books， however， writers please<br >themselves. They choose the name， it is solemnised on the title-page and<br >perpetuated in lists， catalogues and the less-probing bibliographies.<br > Generally speaking， there is no deep thought， and little ingenuity， in<br >，，he devising of pseudonyms. Obvious punning and word association<br >provide one popular method: for example， Cecil John Street became<br >John Rhode; Morris West about-faced to Michael East and Owen<br >Seaman thought up Nauticus. Very basic anagrams or part anagrams，<br >such as Melusa Moolson for Samuel Solomon， John Gannold for John<br >Langdon and Walter De La Mare s Walter Ramal， come a close second.<br > Producing a more profound pseudonym takes a little longer. Life<br >magazine carried a letter flora Edward Stratemeyer， author of the Rover<br >VII<br >