[Washington Irving] The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics)(epub){Zzzzz}[BЯ]

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings, by Washington Irving, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
Biographies of the authors
Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
Footnotes and endnotes
Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
Comments by other famous authors
Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
Bibliographies for further reading
Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.



The first great American man of letters, Washington Irving became an international celebrity almost overnight upon publication of The Sketch Book in 1820, which included the short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” These two tales remain his crowning achievement, but in addition to being a writer of short stories, Irving was also an acclaimed essayist, travel writer, biographer, and historian.



This volume showcases Irving’s best work across a variety of genres, including whimsical newspaper articles about New York society, the theater, and contemporary fashions; charming travel pieces that evocatively weave together history and legend; humorous stories and satirical essays from The Sketch-Book and its sequel Bracebridge Hall, and excerpts from A History of New York, considered the first great American book of comic literature. The author’s success enabled him to earn a living by writing alone, unheard of for an American at that time.



Irving’s energetic, often tongue-in-cheek prose style, together with his ability to blend roguish satire, pathos, and picturesque description, had a profound influence upon the popular culture of his day. His writings have become a cornerstone in the foundation of the American literary tradition.



Peter Norberg received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1998. Since 1997 he has been Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. A specialist on the writers associated with the transcendentalist movement, he has written and lectured extensively on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and the critical reaction to transcendentalism in the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

Editorial Reviews
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Peter Norberg’s Introduction to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings

In April 1789, George Washington arrived in New York City for his inauguration as the first president of the newly formed republic of the United States. He met with a hero’s welcome. In the weeks that followed, well-wishers and admirers regularly approached him in the streets, among them a Scottish-born woman who cornered him in a shop on Broadway. Drawing before her a six-year-old child, she exclaimed, “Please, Your Excellency, here’s a bairn that’s called after ye.” It was Washington Irving. In retrospect, the scene seemed prophetic. Later in life, after having established a reputation as the first American man of letters, Irving recalled in an interview how Washington “laid his hand upon my head, and gave me his blessing.” Three generations after the Revolutionary War, George Washington was revered as the father of our country. Irving likewise was recognized as a founding father of America’s national literature.

Such a title might strike today’s reader as an exaggeration. Irving’s best-known characters, Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane, do not seem substantial enough to serve as foundational figures in an American literary tradition. However, the stories Irving set in Sleepy Hollow, a secluded village in the Hudson River Valley, provided American culture with a local habitation and a name. Along with James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant, Irving was one of America’s pioneer writers. He helped sketch the contours of a cultural landscape that was unique to the United States, not a pale imitation of the literature of England and Europe. Sleepy Hollow is an early example of American authors self-consciously setting out to create an imaginative space for artistic creativity. Nathaniel Hawthorne described this sort of space in his introduction to The Scarlet Letter as “a neutral territory, somewhere between the real-world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other.” By providing such a “neutral territory” for his readers, Irving contributed to the new nation’s efforts to generate a collective cultural memory from native sources.

Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics (February 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1593082258
ISBN-13: 978-1593082253