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Washington Irving

WASHINGTON IRVING was born in New York in 1783 and died at his home "Sunnyside" on the Hudson in 1859. Intended for the law, in which he had no interest, impoverished by the failure of business ventures, Irving turned to literature as a profession, and made a success which won for him a position at home and abroad as the most important American man of letters of his time. "Salmagundi" and "Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty" gained him a reputation by their satire and comic power. When he went to England he found Sir Walter Scott ready to welcome him as a friend and to start him on a literary career there. "The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon" shows the charm he found in English life, as well as introduces the world to Rip Van Winkle. "Bracebridge Hall" and "Tales of a Traveler" established his fortunes. A long stay in Spain led to his "Columbus," "The Conquest of Granada," and "The Alhambra." On his return to America his reception was that of a great personage. The traditions of men of letters in our diplomatic profession had already begun, and Irving was sent as ambassador to Spain. His later years produced his lives of Goldsmith, Mohammed, and Washington. The days of painstaking investigation of sources had not yet arrived; it was as a man of letters rather than as a scholar that Irving wrote his historical books; the charm of his personality and the power to visualize people and circumstances helped him greatly. But his really creative and original work, such as "The Sketch-Book" and "Knickerbocker," will always find the most devoted readers of the earliest American man of letters.