His first publication was The State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, edited by Arthur Clifford, Esq.
; to which is added a Memoir of the Life of Sir R. Sadler, with Historical Notes by Walter Scott, Esq., Edinburgh (Constable), 1809, 2 vols.
A less complete collection of Ralph Sadler's State Papers had been previously published in 1720.
The documents in Clifford's edition were printed by him from a copy of the original manuscripts preserved at Tixall, the seat of his eldest brother, Thomas Hugh Clifford, to whom they had descended through the family of Lord Aston, into which Sir Ralph Sadler's granddaughter had married.
had been originally found at Tixall 'in an old oaken box covered with variegated gilt leather, and ornamented with brass nails.
Clifford's father had at one time made a bonfire of various old trunks and papers that had been accumulating in the house for two centuries, but the gilt leather box was rescued by the ladies of the family.
This work, however, never appeared, though in 1815 Clifford published Tixall Letters, or the Correspondence of the Aston Family and their Friends during the Seventeenth Century; with Notes and Illustrations, 2 vols.
Clifford adds some verses of his own, including a Midnight Meditation among the Ruins of Tixall (also published separately 1813 ?
In 1817 he was staying at Paris with his eldest brother, and while there published Collectanea Cliffordiana, in three parts, containing notices of the Clifford family and an historical tragedy on the battle of Towton; and A Topographical and Historical Description of the parish of Tixall in the county of Stafford.