SOURCE: “Robert Southey's The Doctor, &c.: Anonymity and Authorship,” in English Language Notes, Vol. 31, No. 4, June, 1994, pp. 54-63.

In the following essay, Shortland investigates several explanations for why Southey published The Doctor anonymously, including the idea that the author wished to protect his status as a poet.

Every student of English literature (albeit perhaps unknowingly) is familiar with anonymous publication. Some of our most significant novels—Pamela, Joseph Andrews, Roderick Random, all Jane Austen's early work—have appeared with no attributed author, and so have such poems as Gray's Elegy, Byron's Don Juan, and Tennyson's In Memoriam. There are listed in Halkett and Laing's Dictionary (1882-8) thousands of other examples of anonymous, pseudonymous and “initialled” authorship, ranging widely in style and scope.¹

Authors hide behind the veil of anonymity for the most part to protect themselves or their reputation. But there are many other motives besides caution, for...