Implied author

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The implied author is a concept of literary criticism developed in the twentieth century. It is distinct from the author and the narrator.

The distinction from the author lies in that the implied author consists solely of what can be deduced from the work. The implications of the work may paint a rather different picture of the author than might be deduced from their real life. (Author Saul Bellow once observed that it was not surprising, with all the revision that goes into a work, that an author might appear better on the page than in real life.)

The distinction from the narrator is most clear in ironic works such as "A Modest Proposal", where the narrator cheerfully offers his proposal, but the implied author is as aware as Jonathan Swift or the reader of the horror of what is proposed.

It is important in a wide variety of literary criticism, including structuralism, deconstructionism, and rhetoric-based criticism such as that of Wayne C. Booth.