Pevsner's pseudonyms
Pevsner wrote under various names besides his own during his long career:
• A novella in the style of Thomas Mann, written in his teens, appeared over the signatureof ‘Nikolai Allo’.
• Writing of his experiences clearing bomb debris in Kentish Town in the aftermath of the Blitz, he used the pen-name ‘Ramaduri’ – a Bavarian expression meaning ‘I confess’.
• As a regular contributor to the British wartime propaganda publication Die Zeitung, he wrote as ‘Peter Naumburg’. He chose the surname as a reminder of the German town which had been a refuge for him in his youth and its medieval cathedral with the sculptures that expressed for him all that was best in the German spirit.
• ‘Peter F.R. Donner’ was the alias he used, while Assistant Editor of the Architectural Review, when he wanted to be controversial or to argue with himself in print. ‘Donner’ seems to have been chosen for no particular reason other than that it is the German for ‘thunder’.
• He may have chosen the self-mocking pseudonym ‘P. Dantry’ to cover his contribution to English History at a Glance, a ‘Culture Timetable’ published by the Architectural Press in 1949.