The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent - Softcover

Irving, Washington

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604507497 ISBN 13: 9781604507492

Publisher: Serenity Publishers, LLC, 2009

Synopsis

Includes the classic stories "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and other famous favorites.

About this title

About the Author:

Though trained for law, Washington Irving (1783-1859) turned to writing. The humorous A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809), written under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, won him wide popularity. In 1815, Irving journeyed to England to manage a branch of the family business. This venture ended in failure, and he was compelled to write to support himself. International fame came with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20). In 1826, Irving went to Spain on a diplomatic assignment. His three-year stay there inspired The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) and The Alhambra (1832). In 1829, he was assigned to London as secretary of the United States legation, and after extensive traveling, he served as minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846. Then Irving returned to his home in Tarrytown, New York, where he worked and studied until his death.

Wayne Franklin, professor of English and director of American Studies at the University of Connecticut, is the author of several books on early American literature and culture, including Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers and The New World of James Fenimore Cooper. An editor of the Norton Anthology of American Literature, he is also founding editor of the American Land and Life series, published by the University of Iowa Press.

From the Back Cover:

I stepped upon the land of my forefathers - but felt than I was a stranger in the land. With these words, Washington Irving expresses the dilemma of every American artist in the nineteenth century. The Sketch Book (1820-1) looks simultaneously towards audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, as Irving explores the uneasy relationship of an American writer to English literary traditions. He sketches a series of encounters with the cultural shrines of the parent nation, and in two brilliant experiments with tales transplanted from Europe creates the first classic American short stories, 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow'. Based on Irving's final revision of his most popular work, this new edition includes comprehensive explanatory notes of The Sketch-Book's sources for the modern reader. In her introduction, Susan Manning suggests that the author forged a new idiom, the 'Literary Picturesque', to accommodate and turn to advantage his dilemma of dual literary allegiances.

About this edition

• Publisher: Serenity Publishers, LLC
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1604507497
• ISBN 13: 9781604507492
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302