Today, every creator is recognized as the author of their own work—even when content is produced with the help of artificial intelligence. It’s hard to imagine a writer without a name. Yet, history has often denied women that very recognition. The act of "gifting" a name has been one of the reasons women’s creative contributions have been overlooked—because if a name wasn’t given, their work simply went unmentioned.
This article is dedicated to a few women who either authored or played a crucial role in writing novels but whose names were omitted from the covers, and in some cases, erased from history. Some of Zangak’s published books also hold such untold stories.
Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)Zelda Fitzgerald’s personal diaries and letters were accessible to her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, which might seem natural given their shared bohemian and artistic life. But did he consider his wife’s life part of his creative property?
Zelda was a writer, painter, and dancer. In 1932, she wrote the semi-autobiographical novel Save Me the Waltz, but was forced to remove large portions at Scott’s insistence, as they mirrored themes from his unfinished Tender Is the Night. Zelda’s letters also found their way into The Beautiful and Damned. Scott was the professional writer, but he drew material from both his and Zelda’s lives. “That is my material, my material!” he protested upon discovering Zelda had sent a manuscript to his publisher without his approval. He had spent years working on Tender Is the Night, and since he supported Zelda financially, he saw both their lives as his literary domain.
Sophia Tolstaya (1844–1919)At eighteen, Sophia Tolstaya read Leo Tolstoy’s personal diaries before their marriage, as he wanted her to fully understand his past. She was disturbed by what she found, including his passion for a local woman. Despite Tolstoy’s admiration for Sophia’s own novel Natasha (1862), he discouraged its publication. She ultimately burned the manuscript before their wedding. Nevertheless, elements from Natasha found their way into War and Peace, including character names and several family scenes.
Throughout their long marriage, both kept diaries. In an entry from December 16, 1887, Sophia detailed the overwhelming demands of her life: "This chaos of countless worries, constantly interrupting one another, often leaves me in a daze, and I lose my balance. It’s easy to say, but at any given moment, my mind is burdened with students and sick children, my husband’s hygiene and, most importantly, his spiritual well-being, our grown children with their affairs, debts, children, and service, the sale and management of the Samara estate... the new publication and the 13th volume with the banned Kreutzer Sonata, the petition for division with the Ovsyannikov priest, the proofreading of the 13th volume, nightshirts for Misha, sheets and boots for Andryusha; keeping up with house payments, insurance, estate obligations, passports for the people, managing accounts, copying documents, and so on, and so on—and all of it must, inevitably and directly, pass through me."
She was not only a mother to 13 children (five of whom died young) but also Tolstoy’s secretary, editor, archivist, and copyist. She transcribed War and Peace (all four volumes) multiple times. Tolstoy once remarked: “A woman’s great duty is to bear children, not ideas—that is man’s work.” Yet in 1904, Sophia published prose poetry under the pseudonym Ustalaya ("The Tired One").
Mary Shelley (1797–1851)In the stormy summer of 1816, a group of young intellectuals, including Mary Shelley and Lord Byron, gathered in Switzerland. To pass the time, Byron proposed a ghost story contest. The eighteen-year-old Mary wrote Frankenstein, the winning tale.
Mary was in a complicated relationship with poet Percy Shelley, whom she married later that year. However, when Frankenstein was published in 1818, anonimously, it was attributed to Percy. He had written the introduction, and since Mary had never been published before, many assumed he was the author. Moreover, he dedicated the book to Mary’s father, aligning it with his own political ideals. It wasn’t until 1823, after Percy’s tragic drowning, that Mary’s name appeared on the cover. In 1831, she republished the novel with significant edits.
Yet literary historians debated Percy’s influence. He revised about 5,000 words of the 70,000-word novel, softening the creature’s portrayal and refining the text. In 2009, The Original Frankenstein was published, presenting both Mary’s manuscript and Percy’s edits, with both credited as co-authors.
Susan Sontag (1933–2004)Susan Sontag’s intellectual partnership with sociologist Philip Rieff began as an academic collaboration and quickly turned into marriage. In 1959, Rieff published Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, acknowledging his wife, Susan Rieff, in the introduction. The name referred to none other than Susan Sontag, who had never changed her surname. Years later, Rieff sent her a copy of the book with a note: “Susan, my Love of Life, my Son’s Mother, the co-author of this book, forgive me, please. Philip."
Sontag went on to become one of the 20th century’s most influential critics and novelists. A 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by Benjamin Moser detailed how she juggled caring for her young son while editing and shaping Rieff’s work.
Sources:
https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/beautiful–and–damned–the–myths–of–zelda–fitzgerald/
https://timenote.info/ru/Sofja-Tolstaja
https://www.livelib.ru/articles/post/44115–u–nej–odna–tsel–pochemu–lev–tolstoj–nenavidel–zhenschin
https://www.amazon.com/Writing–Womans–Life–Carolyn–Heilbrun/dp/0393026019?asin=034536256X&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/13/susan–sontag–her–life–benjamin–moser–freud–the–mind–of–the–moralist–philip–rieff?utm_source=chatgpt.com