Authors Using "ghost Writers"

[Guilbert53]

I know that some "famous" people (reality stars or sports people for example) often use ghost writers to write their life stories.

But do some famous authors use ghost writers (unnamed) to write books for them when they are short of ideas or their publishers ask for a new book from them and they have nothing to offer..

I ask because one of my relatives who knows I like mountains and climbing has given me a second hand book Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer.

It is a novel (factualized) about George Mallory the famous climber who died on Everest.

Now I am enjoying the book, and I find the writing style easy to read and interesting.

However their is a lot of detailed climbing information (and all from the early 1900s) that I am not convinced that Jeffrey Archer would know much about. I know he may have done research but as I am reading I get the feeling he did not write it.

Obviously Jeffrey Archer has had a very dodgy life with some stretching of the truth and a spell in prison.

So could it be that some authors pay an unknown writer to write a book for them and claim it as their own?

p.s. Obviously I am not suggesting Jeffrey Archer has done this, we don't want to get sued for libel.

But has their been cases in the past of well known authors passing off written work as their own when they did not in fact write it?

[Guilbert53]

>>However their is a lot of detailed climbing information

Whoops meant to write "there"

Can't have spelling and grammar mistakes in the Art and Literature section.

[Samuraisan]

No idea Guilbert, but I also read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it too, and I know nothing and have no interest in mountaineering. I really enjoy Jeffrey Archer's books.

[EcclesCake]

A friend of mine has ghost written a number of novels for well known writers based on a paragraph or two by the ‘author’.

He now writes under his own name to great acclaim.

[sandyRoe]

I think towards the end of her life Barbara Cartland would dictate ideas for her latest book into a tape recorder and an amanuensis would then do the donkey work for her.

[goodgoalie]

Best-selling author James Patterson has 23 other people who write for him:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10711191/James-Patterson-how-the-bestseller-factory-works.html

[Mamyalynne]

There are various situations where Ghostwriters come into play.

https://www.avclub.com/pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain-7-ficti-1798239907

[jno]

Lots of writers employ researchers to do donkey work for them, though they may not credit them. I dont think that’s particularly controversial. Celebrities putting their names on work when they haven’t written a word of it is is also not unknown; I think that’s dishonest, but presumably readers who buy a book just because it has a celebrity name on it don’t care.

[jno]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/16/fiction.celebrity

[OBotay]

>>But has their been cases in the past of well known authors passing off written work as their own when they did not in fact write it?

You missed another one. "Can't have spelling and grammar mistakes in the Art and Literature section," I distinctly remember reading this somewhere. :)

To your question, the answer is yes, there have been authors who have hired ghostwriters for their projects. For example, Harry Houdini and H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Ludlum and Eric Lustbader, "Carolyn Keene," who had multiple ghostwriters on board, etc.