The 1700s
The eighteenth century made anonymity a political instrument. Treatises and pamphlets that risked prosecution, from Common Sense onward, appeared without names, and reveals often came by the author choice once the argument had won its ground.
8 works.
- Later revealed
Anti-Machiavel
Frederick the Great's 1740 rebuttal of Machiavelli's The Prince, published anonymously by Voltaire. The royal authorship was an open secret from the start.
- Still unknown
The Animated Skeleton
A 1798 Gothic novel published anonymously by the Minerva Press, in which apparent supernatural terror hides human machinery. Its author was never identified.
- Still unknown
The Cavern of Death
A 1794 Gothic chapbook romance of murder revealed in a haunted forest cavern, published anonymously and never attributed.
- Later revealed
The Sorrows of Yamba
A 1795 abolitionist poem in the voice of an enslaved African woman, published anonymously in the Cheap Repository Tracts. Hannah More's authorship is documented.
- Later revealed
Common Sense (pamphlet)
The January 1776 pamphlet that made the case for American independence, signed only 'an Englishman'. Thomas Paine acknowledged authorship within months.
- Later revealed
Dream of the Red Chamber
China's great eighteenth century novel of the Jia family's rise and fall, circulated anonymously in manuscript. Cao Xueqin's authorship was established by modern scholarship.
- Still unknown
Remarks on Cruelty to Animals
A 1795 pamphlet against cruelty to animals, issued by the reformist printer George Nicholson without an author's name.
- Later revealed
An Essay on the Principle of Population
The 1798 treatise arguing population growth outruns subsistence, published anonymously. Its author, T. R. Malthus, put his name to the expanded 1803 second edition.
Other eras:Before 1700 · The 1800s · Early 1900s · Mid 1900s · Contemporary