W.J. Elvin III - The Art of the Prank

Author: W.J. Elvin III

W.J. Elvin III is known to many AOTP readers as author of the rollicking LiteratEye column exploring literary fakes, fraud and folly. His journalistic career focused on investigative reporting and feature writing for national markets. He wrote an award-winning Washington based \"insider\" column during the Reagan era, known on Capitol Hill as \"coffee-spilling time.\" While the column was accused of excessive reliance on a warped imagination, he asserts \"there was some truth to it.\" He has edited newspapers, newsletters and magazines, several of which survived the experience. In addition to investigative work, he has written extensively in fields ranging from antiques to national security. Despite his insistence that "I was nowhere in the vicinity at the time of the alleged incidents," Elvin has been outed as author of the anonymous "Ask the Fiddler" columns archived here. His two mystery novels, "Murder By Bay Breezes" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Eye of Mad Bear," were published by GunBoss Books and may be found on Amazon and other book dispensing sites. A second novel in the Andy Holliday mystery series is currently being hatched.

A LiteratEye Extra

Editor’s Note: W.J. Elvin III’s LiteratEye column about literary hoaxes is featured here, and only here, every Friday.

News Analysis: Who Wrote the Real Stuff in a Fake Book By a Fake Author Now Presumed Dead?
by W.J. Elvin III

[Editor’s note: See bottom of post for an update on this story]

Philip Sessarego may actually be dead this time. But before confirming that a decomposing body found in a garage in Antwerp, Belgium, is indeed that of the author of Jihad!, a book about secret commando operations in Afghanistan, detectives want to see the results of DNA testing.

The test results are vital because Sessarego, who wrote the now-discredited best seller under the name Tom Carew, has previously been reported dead. He was subsequently discovered in hiding in Belgium under the name Philip Stevenson.

It has been seven years since the BBC, in a confrontation that turned violent, challenged Sessarego’s claims about participation in clandestine SAS operations. The author punched a cameraman, made threats and ran away. The SAS could be compared to the U.S. Army’s Green Berets, though to suggest that in either sector would likely get one flattened like roadkill.

For that matter, it is the pride and anger of those who actually served in the SAS operations Sessarego wrote about that may have spelled his doom, according some who knew him. Sessarego had many enemies including specially trained warrior-types who resented his cashing in on false claims about the SAS.

What has puzzled knowledgeable observers is the accuracy of his depictions of those secret Afghan operations. Much has been made of the “uncanny” way in which Sessarego described situations and events that he couldn’t have known about. Continue reading “A LiteratEye Extra: The Mystery of the Missing Fake Author”

We’re pleased to announce the debut of LiteratEye, a new series, only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly and the LitFraud blog.

Literary deception is John’s “beat” and he has agreed to send us a “casebook” dispatch each week for the foreseeable future. Says John, “When literary fraud is exposed it’s usually pretty well covered in the mainstream press, but seems to me they often overlook a good story in who dug it out and how. Sometimes it’s forensics but other times it’s just chance, someone remembers something that puts the work in a questionable light.”

Here, in honor of President’s Day, is John’s first post:

LiteratEye #1: George Washington Lied About Taxes
by W.J. Elvin III
February 13, 2009

Prepare to be shocked and appalled

Minute Book 1756 page 463 Few believe, surely, that George Washington never told a lie, or even that he confessed to chopping down one of his father’s cherry trees, as his early biographer Parson Mason Locke Weems suggested. Weems saw nothing wrong with a bit of fabrication when it served his purposes. Neither, for that matter, did Washington.

Well, if that’s so, what lie did George Washington tell? Name one. No doubt revisionist historians could provide a few dozen, but up until recently I certainly couldn’t have done it. I ran across this little nugget while researching other matters in old newspapers, the sort of thing I do in putting together Fiona, a magazine about literary fraud and folly.

I ran my discovery past Rick Shenkman, editor of History News Network, and he replied that there is no mention of it in the papers of George Washington. I don’t know if that means “and therefore it’s a crock,” or perhaps “good for you, you’ve rescued a valuable anecdote from the dustbin of history.” Possibly neither.

At any rate, evidence in colonial court records, stolen during the Civil War from Fairfax Court House in Virginia but since recovered, indicates that George Washington once faced charges of “swearing a false oath” – that is to say, telling a lie in order to dodge taxes. Continue reading “LiteratEye #1: George Washington Lied About Taxes”