Le Guin and the case of the missing space

I've been seeing this a lot lately, in a wide variety of contexts, so I figured rather than bringing it up in all those contexts, I'd just post about it:

It's a little-known fact that Ursula K. Le Guin's last name has a space in it.

I too used to spell it "LeGuin," and was somehow convinced that that was right. But a few years ago, just as I was about to correct someone for putting a space in her name, I went and looked at one of her books and discovered that there is actually a space there.

Yeah, I know, people misspell names all the time. It's not that big a deal.

But I figured it was worth mentioning in case there was anyone else who, like me a few years ago, was convinced that there wasn't supposed to be a space there.

3 Responses to “Le Guin and the case of the missing space”

  1. .: hhw :.

    And the “K.”, as you have above, is also both correct and preferred. When I was webmaster for Broad Universe, I once got an email from her agent’s office asking us to include the initial in a reference on the website.

    reply
  2. Aliette de Bodard

    The “K.” is for “Kroeber”–not a middle name but her maiden name, as I discovered to my surprise a few years ago (“Le Guin” is actually her married name).

    reply
  3. jaipur.livejournal.com

    Yeah, I keep going back and forth on that. I always have to look it up (and then get it wrong)…

    reply

Join the Conversation