Washington Irving (1783 - 1859)

His Life:

Washington Irving was named after his parents' hero, George Washington. He was born and raised in New York City, somewhere near Wall Street, where he grew up as the youngest of 11 children. His father was a rich merchant, and his mother was a respectable Englishwoman. Even at a young age, Irving had a love for books. His favorite books were adventure stories: Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor. He would always make his parents worry when he went looking for adventure himself as he would travel around the city constantly getting into danger or trouble. Later in his life, he would travel around the world.

A dreamy and ineffectual student, he apprenticed himself in a law office rather than follow his elder brothers to nearby Columbia College. In his free time, he read avidly and wandered when he could in the misty, rolling Hudson River Valley, an area steeped in local folklore and legend that would serve as an inspiration for his later writings.

Although Irving was having great success in his career and social life, a personal tragedy happened. Irving's fiancée died at the age of seventeen in 1809. He wrote in a private letter to a friend "For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." He never married.

Initially, Washington Irving liked to write under pen names. He wrote his first book A History of New York under the name 'Dietrich Knickerbocker' who was supposed to be the comical American scholar. The book made fun of the early Dutch settlers in Manhattan. Soon the word ‘Knickerbocker' was used to describe the early American writers, and eventually the word was used to mean a person from New York. This is where the New York basketball team got its name from, the New York Knickerbockers (Knicks).

Irving's next book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon in (1819-20) was also a huge success. The book was a collection of short stories (including "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"), which were highly influenced by German folktales. Irving got the idea for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" from a folktale that reads, "The headless horseman was often seen here. An old man who did not believe in ghosts told of meeting the headless horseman coming from his trip into the Hollow. The horseman made him climb up behind. They rode over bushes, hills, and swamps. When they reached the bridge, the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton. He threw the old man into the brook and sprang away over the treetops with a clap of thunder."

In 1815, Irving moved to Birmingham in England to live with his sister, her husband, and their four kids. His nieces and nephews loved him, and later in their lives, they would tell people how their uncle Irving would invent stories for them and their friends to entertain them. After his mother's death, Irving decided to stay in Europe for the next seventeen years of his life.

Irving lived in Dresden (1822-23), Paris (1825) and London (1824) where he had a romantic relationship with the writer Mary Shelly. As he traveled, he wrote about the places he visited and the things he saw.

Irving was happy in Europe, but he was a true American at heart, so missing his family and home, he went back to America to live with his brother, Ebenezer, and his brother's children in Sunnyside, Tarrytown. Sunnyside is a mansion in a small town in upstate New York.

After Irving explored America, he returned to Sunnyside where he lived from 1836 to 1842. In the year 1842, Irving traveled back to Spain where, because he was a well-respected writer and had been trained as a lawyer, he was appointed as the Spanish Ambassador. This meant that he would be a diplomatic representative in Europe for the United States.

Finally, Irving moved back to Sunnyside, and he became the president of the New York Public Library. He lived happily with Ebenezer and Ebenezer's family for the rest of his life.

Irving died in Tarrytown on November 28, 1859, but he will always be remembered for his outstanding work, his love for adventure, and for being the first person in America to believe that you can be a make a living by writing.

His Books:

Read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow online

Download this ebook free from Gutenberg Project:

Short-story collection by Washington Irving, first published in 1819-20 in seven separate parts. Most of the book's 30-odd pieces concern Irving's impressions of England, but six chapters deal with American subjects. Of these, the tales THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW and RIP VAN WINKLE have been called the first American short stories, although both are actually Americanized versions of German folktales. In addition to the stories based on folklore, the collection contains travel sketches, literary essays, and miscellany. The Sketch Book was the first American work to gain international literary success and popularity. Its unprecedented success allowed Irving to devote himself to a career as a professional author.