• by Larissa Faw , August 25, 2020

Baileys is joining forces with The Women’s Prize for Fiction to raise the visibility of female authors from yesteryear to properly credit them.

The “Reclaim Her Name” initiative, developed with VMLY&R, republishes 25 novels previously published under male pseudonyms with the author’s true names on the cover for the first time. The collection includes the first ever publication of Middlemarch under George Eliot's real name, Mary Ann Evans.

Each tome also features newly commissioned cover artwork from a global network of female designers.

YMLY&R selected each of the 25 books by searching archives, online and university resources to identify female writers who disguised their gender with pseudonyms.

“Many of the authors we selected were suffragettes and staunch feminists. I’d like to think of this project as our way of thanking them for what they did for us — and of supporting a new generation of artists through the new cover art that 13 inspiring female illustrators, from all over the world, created for the Reclaim Her Name collection,” explains Tamryn Kerr, Creative Director, VMLY&R.