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  • Published: 15 August 2001
  • ISBN: 9780375757211
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $37.99

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories




Perhaps the marker of a true mythos is when the stories themselves overshadow their creator. In the 21st century, Washington Irving's name is generally followed by the same, shopworn honorific--"father of the American short story"--while his best-known inventions continue to roar with life, regularly appearing in movies and TV shows. This serves only to illustrate the author's genius: Irving was the first to give America its own mythology. He constructed a legendary past for a country that many of his peers had dismissed as too young to have a history, and too green for ghosts.
Irving's great work, The Sketch Book, written under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, is a kitchen-sink read: part travelogue, part story anthology, part personal essay. With the help of fictional Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, it is here that readers discover Rip van Winkle, the Dutch colonist who slept through the Revolutionary War, Ichabod Crane, the superstitious, social-climbing schoolmaster, and the pumpkin-topped Headless Horseman, spirit ancestor to countless horror film antiheroes. All these larger-than-life figures inhabit the dreamy Hudson River Valley, a place where bewitched mountains and buried secrets are everyday events. In addition to "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle," The Sketch Book touches on cultural and historical concerns that remain fresh and compelling, thanks to Irving's surprisingly modern outlook and impressive foresight.

This new edition, with an introduction from Irving expert Elizabeth L. Bradley, demonstrates how inextricably and meaningfully Irving's writings are woven into the fabric of American culture both high and low. As Ichabod and Rip find themselves again in the culture spotlight, this edition will strive to infect a new generation with fervor for Washington Irving and to celebrate his enduring contributions to the dream life of a nation.

With his beloved Gothic tales, Washington Irving is said to have created the genre of the short story in America. Though Irving crafted many of the most memorable characters in fiction, from Rip Van Winkle to Ichabod Crane, his gifts were not confined to the short story alone. He was also a master of satire, essay, travelogue, and folktale, as evidenced in this classic collection.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, "Every reader has a first book.... which, in early youth, first fascinates his imagination, and at once excites and satisfies the desires of his mind. To me, this first book was The Sketch Book of Washington Irving... The charm of The Sketch Book remains unbroken; the old fascination still lingers about it."

  • Published: 15 August 2001
  • ISBN: 9780375757211
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $37.99

Other books in the series

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Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Washington Irving

Washington Irving (1783 – 1859) was born into a rich New York family, the youngest of eleven children. He was named after the great future American President, George Washington. Young Washington's early education was patchy but he developed an early love for books and writing. As an adult he didn't have to worry about earning a living and after practising law for a few years he began to write for newspapers and magazines. His first book, Knickerbocker's History of New York (1809), was the first American humorous book which was also literature. It was a great success but Irving continued to be only a part-time writer.

In 1815 he moved to London to manage the British end of the family business and stayed for seventeen years. When the family business collapsed in 1817, He had to make a living for the first time. The immediate result was The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent which contained his two most famous fantasy stories, Rip van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. These classic stories have kept Washington Irving's name alive. He is often called 'the father of American literature' because of the charm and style of his writing and because he was always breaking new ground.

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