Implied author

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The implied author is a concept of literary criticism developed in the 20th century. Distinct from the author and the narrator, the term refers to the "authorial character" that a reader infers from a text based on the way a literary work is written. In other words, the implied author is a construct, the image of the writer produced by a reader as called forth from the text. The implied author may or may not coincide with the author's expressed intentions or known personality traits.

All aspects of the text can be attributed to the design of the implied author—everything can be read as having meaning—even if the real author was simply "nodding" or a textual element was "unintentional". A story's apparent theme or implications (as evidenced within the text) can be attributed to the implied author even if disavowed by the flesh and blood author (FBA). ^[1]