Transatlantic confusions
I was hunting around on Google Books to see if I could find a copy of a Victorian historical novel by the Catholic author Cecilia Mary Caddell (warning: semi-inaccurate bibliography) and was amused to discover that the novel...was not by Cecilia Mary Caddell, despite what the American publisher claimed, but was instead by Frances [Fanny Margaret] Taylor. This is not the first time I've seen authors undergo magical transformations when they cross the ocean: I own a novel ascribed to Grace Kennedy that is really by Selina Bunbury. It's hard to tell if marketing considerations are at issue, or just incompetence. I can easily see a publisher wanting to slap Kennedy's name on a novel, because she was a well-known, well-respected didactic novelist. But why keep confusing Taylor with Caddell? (Caddell always manages to wind up with Taylor's best-seller Tyborne.)