Washington Irving

Literature / Writers Datebook: April 3

 

American Short-Story Writer famous for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle

 

 

 

Brief biography of writer Washington Irving, one of the first American authors to achieve international reputation with the success of  The Sketch Book. Washington Irving became a famous author for his humorous and satirical stories. He pioneered the establishment of short story writing in American literature, and wrote literary history and biography in later years.

 

Early Life 

Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783, in New York City, son of a wealthy merchant. He studied law privately but he did not pursue it as a career although he practised it briefly. He began his career writing satirical essays for newspapers, in particular in the Salmagundi Papers in 1807. 

 

Writing Career

Irving's print debut was in 1802 when he published a collection of nine observational letters, The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. He used the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. The letters first appeared in the November 15 edition of the New York Morning Chronicle, a political-leaning newspaper that time. The letters contained lampoon of the early 19th century New York society and culture. 

When he was 26, he published A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. He used the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was supposed to be an eccentric Dutch-American scholar. The book was a social satire, a comic account of the early years of Dutch settlement in Manhattan, and it became part of New York folklore. It gained him wide acclaim.   

Eventually the word Knickerbocker was used to describe any New Yorker who could trace his/her family to the original Dutch settlers. In 1815, at the age of 32, he went to England where he lived for many years.  

 

The Sketch Book

When he was 37, he published his most successful book, The Sketch Book. It is a collection of essays and sketches on English folk customs, Native Americans, and legends from his childhood in New York State.

The book contains two of his most famous stories: "Rip Van Winkle", about a man who falls asleep for 20 years, and "Legend of Sleepy Hollow", in which the schoolmaster Ichabod Crane meets with a headless horseman.

With the success of The Sketch Book, Irving became a professional writer; he returned to New York in 1832 a literary hero. He died at the age of 76, November 28, 1859. Throughout the United States, there are many schools, hotels, and places taken in his fictional books.

 

Books by Washington Irving

A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, 1809

The Sketch Book, 1819-1820

Bracebridge Hall, 1822

Tales of a Traveller, 1824

History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828

Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus, 1831

The Crayon Miscellany, 1835

The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 1837

Biography and Poetical Remains of the Late Margaret Miller Davidson, 1841

George Washington (5 volumes), 1855-1859

 

Photo credit:

Irving Washington. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain. Daguerreotype of Washington Irving (modern copy by Mathew Brady, original by John Plumbe).

 

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994

McGovern, Una, Ed. Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers / Harrap Publishers, 2002

Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. Carlton, 1997.

 

(c) April 2009. Updated April 3, 2024. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.