Newgate

Is this name even a name? What's in a name? Rose, rose, rose, etc.

Newgate Callender used to review crime fiction for the New York Times Book Review. What a funny name, thought I, when a back-of-a-book-blurb by Mr. or Ms. Callender was pointed out to me—indeed, an ideal name to chew on.

Ah, but this was before I learned about the Newgate Calendar, the moralizing tales of felons and their hangings that were popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

So, you got me. I don't especially care about pen names, though I am especially fond of using the nom de plume of one Samuel Clemens to rejoin those who disparage wordplay (and who cite his famous dismissal of puns while making their case).