Anonymous (Gr., 'nameless'), a term applied to a book the author of which does not give his name; when an assumed name is given, the term PSEUDONYMOUS is used. Works of this class constitute one of the great difficulties of bibliography.
In Great Britain, till the foundation of the Fortnightly and Contemporary Reviews (1865-66), political articles were generally anonymous, as also was most of the literary criticism, till the starting of the Academy (1869). It is generally admitted that anonymity secures the independence of the critic, and enables him to write with greater freedom, vigour, and power; but it is true that he often abuses his advantage, and gratifies under the veil of the anonymous his own personal pique. The article on 'the fleshly school of poetry' in the Contemporary Review for October 1871, which drew upon its author such merited castigation from Dante G. Rossetti in his famous letter to the Athencæum on 'the stealthy school of criticism' (December 16, 1871), was an example of an attempt to preserve anonymity even in a magazine where the articles were signed—its author, Robert Buchanan, having used the pseudonym of 'Thomas Maitland.' Perhaps the most intolerable abuse of anonymity is the anonymous letter, which, even when the writer is known, is legally punishable only in so far as it is slanderous or comes under the law of Libel (q.v.). See Barbier's Dictionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes et Pseudonymes (Paris, 1806, 3d ed. 1872-79), which embraces the titles of about 24,000 works, with the names of those who are assumed or known to be the authors. Other lists of anonymous and pseudonymous literature will be found in the indexes to Notes and Queries; in 'Olphar Hamst's' Handbook of Fictitious Names (1868); Cushing's Initials and Pseudonyms (New York, 1885), with his companion volume, Anonyms (1887), comprising the titles of 20,000 books and pamphlets, and authors' names; and Halkett and
Laing's Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature (4 vols. Edin. 1881-1887).