A Guide to the Clifford Irving Papers, 1954-2012

Biographical Note

Clifford Irving was born in 1930, growing up in New York City. He graduated from Cornell and worked in the newsroom of the New York Times before sailing to Europe in 1953, where he worked on his first novel on the Spanish island of Ibiza. In 1961 he was a correspondent to the Middle East for NBC. In 1972, Irving was convicted of fraud stemming from his production of an elaborately faked autobiography of the enigmatic billionaire Howard Hughes.

Irving, working with Richard Suskind, created a manuscript based on forged documents and audio interviews. They persuaded a publisher McGraw-Hill to forward an advance of $765,000, which was placed into a Swiss bank account by Irving’s then-wife Edith. The book was slated for publishing in March 1972, but two month’s prior, Hughes held a telephone press conference to denounce the work. Irving was convicted later that year and spent 17 months in federal prison.

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Scope and Contents

The Irving Papers include correspondence with lawyers, publishers and colleagues; personal diaries; lawsuit documents; prison journals; drafts and notes related to Irving’s literary works; portions of the Hughes manuscript; fan mail; information related to Irving’s 1972 bankruptcy; childhood drawings and school report cards; photographs; and restricted documents that Irving battled to obtain from the U.S. State Department.

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

Social security numbers, medical records, and financial material are restricted to protect confidentiality and privacy.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Clifford Irving Papers, 1954-2012, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

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Detailed Description of the Papers

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