I have many names.
For those keeping score at home, yes, this is a direct quote from Bored of the Rings, wherein it's used repeatedly by Goodgulf Grayteeth, Wizard, failed Rosicrucian, 32nd degree Mason, and Member of the Mystic Shrine of Jerusalem. I can't claim such a lofty collection of titles, but I do go by four separate and distinct names, only one of which is on my driver's license.
This is not due to the usual reason a woman might have more than one name - marriage - since I kept my birth name when I got married. This caused the occasional problem, like the time that a plumber saw that my husband and I had different surnames and was mortally offended ("You let your wife keep her name?" "No, I never asked her change it."), or my aunt's insistence that I'd actually hyphenated my birth name with my husband's (more silly than anything else until her will was read and I had to swear in Orphans' Court that I was the same person Betty had named in her will, really truly cross my heart and hope to die a Dominionist), but these were more than outweighed by the absence of problems when I got divorced and didn't have to spend a small fortune changing the name on my driver's license, bank accounts, passport, car title, deed to the house, and tax documents.
No, my non-birth names are all ones that I chose myself:
- Ellid, my chief blogging name. This started as a handle on a very early computer chat program at the Five Colleges in the early 1980s. My boyfriend and I had both read and enjoyed Nancy Springer's novel The White Hart, a fantasy centered around Bevan, son of a mortal and the moon goddess, and his beloved companion and (briefly) wife Ellid, so when my boyfriend started calling himself "Bevan" in chat rooms, it seemed logical for me to be "Ellid." I stopped using the handle after college, but reclaimed it when I started blogging in 2005, and now it's my preferred name online.
- Sarah Davies, my persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism, the medieval re-enactment/recreation group that has been my chief hobby for over twenty years. I chose Sarah as a way to honor my mother, who originally wanted to name me Sarah but was talked out of it by the rest of the family, and Davies because it was Welsh, like my paternal ancestors. Sarah-the-persona, who is what I might have been in the Renaissance, is the daughter of a Welshman who profited mightily from trade with Italy when Henry Tudor was crowned king of England. She now runs the family business and studies the New Learning of the humanists in her spare time. Sarah-the-SCAdian has made a serious study of medieval and Renaissance quilting, and was raised to the peerage as a member of the Order of the Laurel for her teaching and handiwork six years ago.
- Sarah Ellis is the name under which I write and occasionally sell erotica. I chose it not because I'm ashamed of writing sexy stories - far from it - but because I didn't want to confuse people looking for information on old quilts.
- My legal name, which I use professionally and in academia. So far I have one academic paper in print, three popular articles published by a regional quilting group, and a second academic paper scheduled to be published later this year in the eighth volume of Boydell & Brewer's Medieval Clothing & Textiles hardcover journal series.
It may seem difficult, juggling all these names, but it's proved surprisingly easy; I've been Sarah so long that I sometimes joke about having a ready-made nom de guerre if civilization truly collapses and I have to go under ground. As for Ellid...well, at this point I answer to it at conventions, so it's my third name. And if I actually do manage to sell more than one story, Sarah Ellis will eventually seem as natural the name my parents gave me half a century ago.
The one thing I've never done is use any of these names for ill, or denied that they're all used by the same middle aged woman with too many books, a less than tidy house, and three beloved if peculiar cats. Anyone here who was determined to figure out my real name wouldn't find it all that hard, and it wouldn't upset me all that much. I'm not ashamed of what and who I am.
The same, alas, cannot be said for everyone who has more than one name. Multiple aliases can and all too frequently are used for nefarious purposes ranging from pranks to outright fraud. For every artist or blogger who takes another name to preserve a modicum of privacy, or to establish a separate persona for different facets of her life, there's another who takes a new name to make it easier to slip between the cracks of the law, or play a mean trick on an enemy or a former friend.
And of course, life and this diary being what they are, some of the multi-named are the authors of Books So Bad They're Good.
Tonight I bring two books, each written under a pseudonym. One was written to cover a hoax, the second was written for financial gain:
An Historical and Geographical Description of the Island of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan, by "George Psalmanazar" (an unknown but potentially French gentleman of dubious antecedents) - A strange man appeared in the Netherlands in the early 18th century. Sometimes a beggar, sometimes a mercenary, he claimed to be from the far-off land of Formosa, the island off the coast of China later known as Taiwan. Although he looked very European, especially about the eyes, he followed a calendar not known to his fellow soldiers, spoke primarily in his own language, and worshipped the sun and the moon according to the customs of his people.
Naturally the traveler attracted attention for his unusual religion, speech, and habits. If rumor had it that he bore a startling resemblance a certain “Japanese heathen” who had toured Germany a few years earlier eating raw meat seasoned with cardamom, well, Formosa and Japan weren’t that different, were they? Add in that the young mercenary had supposedly been abducted from his homeland by malevolent Jesuits and taken to France, and the Protestant Dutch were pleased to host the stranger from the mysterious and exotic East.
A Scottish military chaplain, William Innes, met the unusual stranger in 1702 and soon announced that he had converted the Formosan to Christianity under the name “George Psalmanazar,” in honor of the Biblical king Shalmanaser. Proud of his catechumen, Innes arranged for them both to travel to London in 1703 so the Easterner could see the benefits of European civilization and Innes could introduce his prize convert to the Anglican hierarchy.
Psalamanzar quickly became the toast of the town. Literary London was delighted to welcome the articulate young man and his tales of Catholic malfeasance, and even more delighted when he wrote a book detailing the customs of his little-known homeland. Who knew that Formosans lived underground in circular houses? Or that Formosan men wore nothing but metal plates covering their exquisite floppily-doppilies? Or that cannibalism was not only a punishment for unfaithful wives, but a crucial part of the local religion, which required the sacrifice and consumption of 18,000 young boys each year to propitiate the Sun and the Moon?
Best of all, Psalamanzar quickly wrote a book chockfull of these fascinating tales, and much, much more. An Historical And Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island Subject to the Emperor of Japan not only was replete with enough sacrifices and wife-eating to sate the bloodlust of a city that regarded public hangings as fine entertainment, it contained a detailed description of Formosan geography, the Formosan language, and a Formosan alphabet.
The book was a smash hit, with two editions in English and one each in French and German. Psalamanzar, who gave every appearance of now being a pious Anglican, was invited to lecture on Formosan culture and language before learned societies, including the Royal Society itself. There was even talk of having him share his extensive knowledge of his homeland at the University of Oxford, the finest educational institution in the British Isles.
There were doubters, of course; Jesuit missionaries who’d actually been to Formosa (and hadn’t abducted anyone) pointed out numerous and glaring errors of topography, custom, and religion, while skeptics wondered why Psalamanzar was so suspiciously fair skinned. Psalamanazar countered that his family, like typical upper class Formosans, had lived underground, thus preserving his complexion from the darkening influence of the sun. As for the Jesuits, they were the ones who had abducted him in the first place, so why should anyone believe them?
Unfortunately for Psalamanzar, his learning, such as it was, was mainly confined to languages and what passed for anthropology. His debate opponent at the Royal Society was a trained scientist and mathematician.
His name was Edmund Halley. You may have heard of him, especially in relation to a certain well known comet.
Halley noted that for all its colorful descriptions, Psalamanzar’s book contained several major errors about astronomical and physical phenomena such as eclipses, the procession of the equinoxes, and the length of the seasons. Psalmanazar, who knew diddly about the science, was unable to come up with a convincing explanation, and by 1706 the “Formosan craze” was largely over.
Psalamanzar disappeared for a time, only to resurface as a Grub Street hack in the 1730s. He studied Hebrew and religion, contributed to numerous early encyclopedias, befriended the young Samuel Johnson, and published a collection of theological essays. He even sent Samuel Richardson, author of the proto-romance novel Pamela, forty pages of fanfiction a proposed sequel to Richardson’s bestseller. Richardson dismissed Psalmanazar’s efforts as “ridiculous and improbable,” which is saying something considering the quality of his own work.
The sometime Formosan ended his days as a beloved, somewhat eccentric figure in literary London; he had somehow wangled an annual pension of £30 from the government, and spent his remaining time writing his autobiography. Memoirs of * *, Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalamanzar; a Reputed Native of Formosa, revealed that he was actually a Frenchman, educated by Franciscans and the hated Jesuits, and had been something of a prodigy. He had left school in his mid-teens to make his fortune, and had begun his career as an imposter by pretending to be an Irish pilgrim in hopes that he could beg his way to Rome. He switched to impersonating an Asian only after being repeatedly exposed by people who actually knew something about Ireland and its natives.
Psalamanzar, who never revealed his true identity, died in 1763. Much to the disgust of later grammarians, his “Formosan alphabet” appeared in German language books well after his death.
The Autobiography of Howard Hughes, by "Howard Hughes (Clifford Irving) - original Tony Stark, a living Doc Savage who could do any and everything. His withdrawal from public life to a reclusive existence in a luxurious suite at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas only enhanced his legend.
By the late 1960s Hughes, once nearly as famous and photographed as one of his own stars, hadn’t been seen in public in a decade. Naturally the public wanted to know what had happened. Was he crazy? Inventing fabulous devices in his very own Fortress of Solitude? Dead? Hughes (or his company) had bought off every single journalist or writer who had tried to solve the mystery, and the secrecy surrounding the luxurious penthouse suite at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, which Hughes owned, was yet more grist for the mill.
Then the respected publisher McGraw-Hill announced late in 1971 that not only was Hughes alive, he had dictated his autobiography to best selling author Clifford Irving!
The resulting literary sensation must have had the accounting department at McGraw-Hill smacking their lips and rubbing their little pink pitty-paws together in glee. Irving, a talented writer whose first novel had influenced Thomas Pynchon’s V, was best known for penning the popular Fake!, a biography of art forger Elmyr de Hory. Reportedly Hughes had read Fake!, liked it, and gotten in touch with Irving to write his own memoirs. The combination of Howard Hughes and a proven author would doubtless translate to a long and very profitable stay on the bestseller lists, dwarfing the $765,000 advance the great man had received for this priceless historical document.
Of course there were doubters, but McGraw-Hill had a file of letters in Hughes’ own handwriting stating his intention to write an autobiography, all of them authenticated by handwriting experts, plus contracts and cancelled checks signed by “H.R. Hughes.” Irving himself had assured his editors that Hughes had wanted to keep the book a secret and simply hadn’t told anyone. Hadn’t he, Clifford Irving, interviewed Hughes wherever and whenever the great man wanted, including on the steps of a Mexican pyramid? How could anyone doubt that McGraw-Hill and Clifford Irving had scored the journalistic coup of the century?
One person, and one person only, could stop the Howard Hughes autobiographical juggernaut: Howard Hughes. And to the eternal dismay of Clifford Irving, his wife Edith, his researcher Richard Suskind, and the editorial and accounting staff of McGraw-Hill, Howard Hughes did exactly that.
Hughes, who not only had no intention of writing his autobiography but had never so much as heard of Clifford Irving, was furious. The last journalist who had actually interviewed him was Frank McCulloch, who hadn’t had to climb a pyramid to do so. McCulloch hadn’t seen Hughes in years, but he instantly recognized the angry voice when Hughes phoned him soon after McGraw-Hill’s announcement. Hughes denounced the project and threatened a lawsuit; Irving promptly agreed to be interviewed by Mike Wallace, who believed him despite the doubts of his production staff.
Matters came to a climax on January 9, 1972, when Hughes held a conference call with seven journalists who had known him during his previous career as a public figure. Hughes reiterated that he had never even met Clifford Irving, let alone collaborated with him on a book, and allowed the journalists’ end of the phone call to be televised.
Irving claimed that the disembodied voice on the other end of the wire was probably a fraud.
By now McGraw-Hill was getting very, very nervous; they had paid out over three-quarters of a million dollars for a book that was looking increasingly less like a bestseller and more like a hoax, and Irving had done nothing to allay their fears beyond the Wallace interview and an inconclusive polygraph test. Matters only worsened when Hughes filed suit against McGraw-Hill, Life magazine (which was supposed to publish an excerpt from the book), Clifford Irving, and paperback house Dell Publications. The publishers, frantic, contacted the Swiss bank that had deposited that advance to “H.R. Hughes” and learned that it had gone into an account taken out by one ”Helga R. Hughes,” an attractive woman who bore a striking resemblance to Edith Irving.
The truth finally came out on January 28, 1972. The Irvings and Suskind confessed that they had decided to fake Hughes’ autobiography 1970 in hopes of scoring a fat advance that would allow them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Hughes had famously refused to appear in public since 1958, even for court appearances, so they were confident that he wouldn’t dare to challenge the “autobiography” when it appeared. They had relied on the Time-Life archives for basic information on Hughes’ life, plus the unpublished memoirs of Hughes’ former business manager Noah Dietrich by ghostwriter James Phelan. Phelan, who hadn’t known that Irving had been given a copy of the manuscript by a mutual acquaintance, was nearly as upset as Hughes.
All three conspirators ended up doing time for fraud, with the longest sentence going to Clifford Irving himself since he’d actually written the book and forged several letters in Hughes’ handwriting. Irving returned the $765,000 advance to McGraw-Hill, gave up smoking while in jail, divorced poor Edith, and wrote several more books after his release from prison. He currently lives outside Aspen, Colorado, where he devotes himself to a simple life of gardening, creative work, soft martial arts and “count[ing] his blessings.”
Howard Hughes, who lived for several more years after the Great Autobiography Hoax, continued his reclusive life in Las Vegas. Most likely a victim of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Hughes’ hair grew long, his nails grew longer, and he spent much of his time watching two of his own films, Jet Pilot (delayed by Hughes’ quest for perfection long enough that its state of the art airplanes were obsolete by the time it was released) and The Conqueror, a John Wayne vehicle filmed close enough to a nuclear test site that nearly half the cast and crew eventually developed cancer. His estate became the subject of an inheritance fight involving (you guessed it) a faked will leaving a significant part of his estate to a gas station owner.
That this famously private man became more famous for the hoaxes perpetrated in his name, not to mention similar characters in films such as James Bond vehicle Diamonds Are Forever, Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle The Aviator, and the Academy Award winning Melvin and Howard, is one of history’s great ironies. He never did write his memoirs.
And as for the book?
Not only did Clifford Irving write his own account of the hoax...not only did Orson Welles include the story of the Hughes book in his film about Elmyr de Hory...not only did Richard Gere and Marcia Gay Harden appear as Clifford and Edith Irving the recent film The Hoax...the actual Irving/Hughes autobiography/hoax finally was published in 2008 by John Blake, a British publisher, under the name Howard Hughes: The Autobiography. It is available in the United States thanks to the miracles of modern technology, and anyone who wishes to know what all the fuss was about can finally read the fruits of Howard Hughes' life and Clifford Irving's avarice.
What Howard Hughes would have thought of all this is unknown, but he probably would not be pleased.
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