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ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-225-3 ISBN-10: 1-59308-225-8

eISBN : 978-1-411-43253-6

LC Control Number 2005932486

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Fine Creative Media, Inc.

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Printed in the United States of America

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FIRST PRINTING

Washington Irving

Washington Irving, arguably the first American author to earn international literary acclaim, was born on April 3, 1783, in New York City. The Americans had won independence from Britain (the Treaty of Paris would be signed in September), and William Irving, a well-to-do merchant who had emigrated from Scotland, named his eleventh and youngest child after General George Washington. When Irving was seventeen, he began apprenticing in New York legal firms, including that of a former attorney general of New York, Josiah Hoffman. Irving soon realized, however, that his true interests lay in writing.

By the age of nineteen he was writing witty stories and sketches for local journals. His series Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. was published in 1802 in the Morning Chronicle, a weekly edited by his brother Peter. In 1807, after a two-year tour of Europe, he began a similarly tongue-in-cheek series of sketches, Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff & Others, which he coauthored with his brother William and their friend James Kirke Paulding. Two years later Irving’s mock history of Dutch colonization, A History of New York, was published; full of fascinating historical details and ribald comic portraits, it gained instant notoriety. This period was also one of personal hardship and depression for Irving. His fiancée, Matilda Hoffman, died of tuberculosis in 1809; a few years later, the War of 1812 devastated the family import business. Irving sailed to London in 1815 to begin a second tour of Europe but found himself instead in Liverpool, helping his brother attempt to salvage the remains of their company.

When P. & E. Irving went bankrupt in 1818, Irving determined to earn a living through his writing. He met Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott, who took the young author under his wing, introducing him to such literati as Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. Irving scored an immediate triumph with The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, published in 1819. The work—which contains his best-known tales, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”—was an international success.

In 1826 Irving was appointed a diplomatic attaché to the American embassy in Madrid. Ever curious to understand his environment, he began researching Spanish history and customs. The Conquest of Granada was published in 1829, and The Alhambra followed in 1832.

Irving finally returned to America in 1832, after a seventeen-year absence. He made an adventurous trip through the American West, which he chronicled in A Tour of the Prairies (1835), and then built his home, Sunnyside, along the picturesque banks of the Hudson River north of New York City. Irving traveled again to Europe in 1842 to serve as the American minister to Spain, a position he held until 1846. Otherwise he remained at Sunnyside, where he continued to write. He published many more stories and sketches as well as a five-volume biography of his namesake, George Washington. Washington Irving died at home on November 28, 1859.

The World of Washington Irving and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

1783 Washington Irving is born in New York City on April 3, the youngest of eleven children. His father, a Scottish immigrant and well-to-do merchant, names him after General George Washington. The American Revolution ends with the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, in which Great Britain formally recognizes the independence of the United States.

1787 Irving attends several schools in the New York area and develops a love of plays and histories.

1788 English poet and satirist George Gordon, Lord Byron, is born.

1789 The French Revolution begins. Songs of