Little Lord Fauntleroy

Well! I think an easy way to write off why men used women's pen names and vice versa is that they were simply jealous of each other. Or rather, each other's audience. I would think the authors gender matters to some of this time period because of social dictations. Men were to act manly, and read manly things, written by men and the same can be said for women. If woman writer wanted to write a novel, it would most likely have been easier to do it under a man's name. Also, if a man wanted to right a more sensitive story, he might use a woman's name.

One example that I can think if is on pages 340 and 341. The author describes this youth as being beautiful. A typical male writer would probably see his strength or wit before his beauty. It is the descriptions of the young Cedie, that made me suspicious of the writers sex in the first place.

What difference does it make then? I think the biggest difference is that people make assumptions about what might happen in the story, the details mentioned and not mentioned, and most importantly the overall message of the story. I have found as a very general rule that woman writers tend to be more sympathetic to the characters of a story. I also like to believe they kind find the beauty in everyday life more often. Instances that we can't tell whether the author is male or female I think are very special too. In these cases we can only judge the words that that author wrote. In these cases we might pay more attention to the overall message of the story.