Irving
Irving names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Irving Washington (April 3
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Washington (April 3, 1783 to November 28, 1859), an American author. He was born in New York , then a city of 23,000 inhabitants. His father, William Irving, was Scotch, the descendant of an armor bearer of Robert Bruce. He was a "blue Presbyterian," an ardent upholder of the colonial cause. Irving's mother, Sarah Sanders, was of Cornish descent. She was a gentle, cheerful, sympathetic woman, who, nevertheless, had her own way in the family and brought up her eleven children to be Episcopalians. The family was intimate with both Dutch and English neighbors. Washington Irving was the youngest of the family. He was a merry, roguish chap. The old home, of which nothing now remains, was one of numerous flat-roofed buildings. The young lad delighted in getting out through a skylight and running around above people's heads, dropping bits of mortar down the chimneys. These and other pranks gave his strict father much anxiety. In later years, after his parents thought him asleep, Washington used to get out at a window and make his way to the theater. He says of himself that he was "led to believe that everything that was pleasant was wicked." At school Irving was fond of reading and telling tales, but he abhorred arithmetic. He wrote gladly for the other boys and got them to solve his problems for him. Owing to feeble health the young lad was not sent regularly to school, nor did he follow his elder brothers to Columbia College. He received a little desultory instruction in Latin and in music. He continued his reading, however. His favorite books were Sinbad the Sailor, Gulliver's Travels , Robinson Crusoe, and Pilgrim's Progress . As he grew up Irving was set to read law, but he did not like the subject. He was a "heedless student." He gave little attention to his studies but carried on an extensive course in general reading. In 1804 his brothers, who were now in business, sent him to Europe in quest of pleasure and health. He was so full of pranks that the captain is said to have remarked: "That chap will go overboard before we get across." He saw Nelson's fleet in the Mediterranean, ready for the battle of Trafalgar. He visited Rome, and was much taken with the idea of becoming an artist. He visited Paris and wrote home, excusing himself for delay by saying: "I am a young man, and in Paris." In London he had the pleasure of hearing John Kemble and the renowned actress, Mrs. Siddons. On his return to New York Irving resumed his study of the law, and was admitted to the bar in due time; but, as before, he spent the greater part of the time in reading literature, and in attending social gatherings and teaparties as well. He was considered one of the most brilliant young men in society. In 1809 his betrothed, a Miss Hoffman, a daughter of the lawyer in whose office he had studied law, died. Irving never married. He kept her Bible, prayer book, her picture, and a lock of her hair always with him. As early as 1802, before going to Europe, he had contributed humorous sketches over the name of Jonathan Oldstyle to the Morning Chronicle, a paper edited by an older brother, Peter. In 1807 he joined with three other young men, a brother, a brother-in-law, and James K. Paulding, in the publication of a little fortnightly periodical, Salmagundi. It has been called "The American Spectator." It was a bright, breezy affair, full of humorous hits and local allusions. Irving contributed the Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Longstaff. Twenty issues appeared. Irving's next literary venture was Died-rich Knickerbocker's History of New York . It apeared anonymously. It was advertised as proceeding from a small, elderly gentleman in black coat and cocked hat, who had left a manuscript behind him at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street. It was taken for genuine history by some Europeans. It was hailed by the literary world, including Walter Scott, as a "most excellently jocose history, a masterpiece of humor." It brought Irving $3,000. In 1815 Irving's brothers formed an importing house and sent him to England to assist in carrying on the European end of the business. He accomplished little in a business way, but the result of his Knickerbocker's History gained him the acquaintance of Keene, Kemble, Moore, Jeffrey, Murray, Scott, and other literary notables. He visited Scott at Abbotsford. During this period of his life Irving wrote The Sketch Book, signing it Geoffrey Crayon. Geoffrey declared, "I have no wife, no children, good nor bad, to provide for. I am a mere spectator of other men's fortunes." The Sketch Book is a collection of sketches, written as by a leisurely traveler. It included his best productions. His first sketches were published in Philadelphia. Through the efforts of Walter Scott, Murray, the London publisher, was induced to bring out a British edition. Irving's reputation, as well as an income from literary sources, was now secure. He had, no doubt, a faith that prosperity was coming, for he had already turned aside friends who desired to put him in the way of the mayoralty of New York, a seat in Congress, and a secretaryship worth $2,500 a year under President Van Buren. The Sketch Book appeared in 1819. Bracebridge Hall , a similar volume, spoken of sometimes as the "English Sketch Book," appeared in 1822. Murray offered him $5,000 for it without seeing the manuscript. The "original home," immortalized by Irving in this book, is Ashton Hall, in the vicinity of Birmingham. Tales of a Traveler followed soon after. From 1826 to 1829 Irving was secretary of the American legation at Madrid. He collected a large amount of historical material which he used later in A Life of Columbus. During the summer of 1829 he lived in an apartment of the Alhambra yet shown to visitors. It was here, on historic ground, that the inspiration came to him for his Conquest of Granada and The Alhambra, spoken of sometimes as "The Spanish Sketch-Book." In 1829 he was transferred to the legation at London. Oxford University made him a Doctor of Laws. In 1832 he returned to New York. Although a master of English he is said to have broken down utterly in an attempt to make a speech at a banquet in his honor. About this time Irving purchased a Dutch stone cottage on the banks of the Hudson at Tarrytown. The name has been changed since to Irvington in his honor. The house belonged formerly to the Van Tassels. It was a cosy home, picturesquely situated. Ivy slips from Melrose Abbey soon covered it with a mantle of green. Among his proud possessions was the venerable weathercock that once surmounted the Stadt-House of New Amsterdam. He set it on the gable of his house. Irving called his home Sunnyside. It is described in his Wolfert's Roost. His income was ample. He invited a brother to settle with him here. His nieces, with whom he was fond of romping, continued to occupy the cottage at the close of the nineteenth century. In 1842 Irving was appointed minister to Spain. He remained abroad four years. His residence at Tarrytown was interrupted by a trip to the West, which resulted in his writing A Tour on the Prairies, Astoria, and the Adventures of Captain Bonneville. His last work of importance was a Life of George Washington in five volumes. It appeared in 1855-9. Other biographies were Oliver Goldsmith, Mahomet, and Columbus. Irving's New York publisher was G. P. Putnam, who stood to him in much the same relation that James T. Fields afterward held to the poets of New England . In person Irving was a man of medium height, rather stout in build. He had dark gray eyes, delicate eyebrows, a straight, handsome nose, and a shapely head. He was a humorous, modest, genial, sunny man, very sensitive in his nature. He was an amiable man in society, and free from literary jealousies. In this and many other respects he was much like Walter Scott, for whom he had a profound admiration. He was buried by the side of his mother in Sleepy Hollow near Tarrytown. In point of rank the world has long since given Irving an eminent place among men of letters. He entered into the departed glories of the Moors and repeopled the Alhambra as no other writer has done. He described Westminster Abbey with such simplicity and feeling that Charles Kingsley, himself a master of English prose, felt his own pen fall powerless. He loved the ancestral halls, the lanes and hedges of England, as few of her native sons have done. He entered into the life of Abbotsford and made Walter Scott his friend for life, and yet, all said, the scenes of his greatest work are near at hand and at home. He is to the Catskill Mountains and the lower Hudson what Scott is to the Trossachs, to Edinburgh, and the Tweed. The Alhambra, Westminster Abbey, and Abbotsford might have been described by another, but no other hand than Irving's could have painted Sleepy Hollow. No other eye could have seen Ichabod Crane as he saw him. His greatest creation is Rip Van Winkle, a unique character in literature. See Catskills; Jefferson ; Westminster SAYINGS OF IRVING. The Almighty Dollar. A man as he grows old must take care not to grow musty, or fusty, or rusty--an old bachelor especially. When I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I get a taste to suit my dinner. The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow. SAID OF IRVING. Before Irving there was no laughter in the land.--Beers. His writings are my delight.--Byron. For fifty years, Irving charmed and instructed the American people and held the foremost place in their affections.--Warner. To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele. Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill, With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will, Mix well, and while stirring, hum o'er, as a spell, The fine old English Gentleman, simmer it well, Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, That only the finest and clearest remain, Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives From the warm, lazy sun loitering down through green leaves, And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving A name either English or Yankee--just Irving. --Lowell.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WASHINGTON, one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century, born in New York in 1783. Most of his early education was gained by tramping through the beautiful Westchester region and the Hudson Highlands, by lounging on the docks to watch the arrival and departure of the ships that seemed to him to ply between fairy lands of romance and his native city, and by visits to the theatre and reading whole libraries of romance. He studied law, but rebelled against it, and did not make a very active practitioner. He had no taste for politics, his leaning being rather toward Hamilton's theories than Jefferson's. In his letters, and in his "Knickerbocker History of New York," he expresses distaste for many of the aspects of American politics, and he satirizes Jefferson's conduct of foreign affairs. His first writings were rather thin imitations of the eighteenth century English essayists, satires on fashions and manners, the first of them published in his brother Peter's newspaper, and continued, after his return from his first European journey, in "Salmagundi." This last, in which he had as collaborators his brother William and James Kirke Paulding, appeared twice a month for about a year (1807), and made a prodigious success. Meantime, Irving went abroad (1804- 1806) where he indulged to the full his love of romance and tradition surrounding ancient lands and cities. "My native country was full of promise," he wrote; "Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age." It became one of the objects of his life to give, so far as literature could avail, something of the charm of tradition to what he held to be a natural setting as romantic, especially around New York, as any scenes to be found abroad. He found his first opportunity to do this in his "Knickerbocker History" (1809), first planned as a burlesque of a pompous and pedantic work by Dr. Samuel Mitchill but soon developing into an independent work of astonishing variety and charm. The book owes much to Rabelais, "Don Quixote," and other writers of burlesque romance, and also to Fielding, Sterne and other English masters of the eighteenth century; but it also has a high originality of its own. His portraits of the Dutch governors; his satire of contemporary politics under the guise of a sober history of the old Dutch colony; the abounding spirits and rollicking humor; the remarkable way in which it translates the spirit of old romance WASHINGTON IRVING to the American continent; above all, the flavor of the book, urbane, witty, keen, even if often exaggerated, these make it the first important work of the pure imagination to appear in America. He published it as if it were the work of an imaginary Dr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who has become a well known figure in American letters; he dedicated it to the New York Historical Society, and it has often been classed by librarians among legitimate "histories." After this success Irving published nothing for ten years. He attempted to practice law, engaged mildly in politics, revised his "History," edited a magazine, but devoted most of his time to society. During the war with England he was military secretary to the governor of New York. In May, 1815, he sailed once more for England, expecting only to pay a short visit to his brother, but seventeen years passed before his return. Though he was offered various literary posts in England, chiefly through the friendship of Sir Walter Scott, he refused to do anything that might look like an abandonment of his native country. The "Sketch Book," his most famous work, appeared in parts from May, 1819, to September, 1820. In 1822 appeared "Bracebridge Hall" and two years later "Tales of a Traveller." In these books he links America and England in a series of essays, tales, and descriptive sketches, all of them marked by urbanity, humor, and by a finish of style previously unknown in American prose. The most famous of the sketches deal with certain folk legends, some of them from the Harz mountains, which he translated to the romantic region of the Catskills and old New York with its picturesque Highlands to the north. As in "Knickerbocker,' home scenes and places and familiar names with those imaginative and whimsical associations so seldom met with in our new country, but which live like spells and charms about the cities of the old world." From 1820 to 1826 he travelled in France and Germany, and in the latter year went to Spain, where he spent three years. Here he became interested in historical work, the results being his "Life of Columbus" (1828); "Conquest of Granada" (1829); and "The Alhambra" (1832). Returning to England, in 1829, as secretary of the American legation, he was awarded a medal by the Royal Society and the degree of D.C.L. by Oxford. At length, in 1832, he returned to America, settling at Tarrytown, since famous as "the Irving country." He was offered various political posts, which he declined, but in 1842 accepted an appointment as Minister to Spain, where he spent four years. His last works were the "Crayon Miscellany" (1835); "Captain Bonneville" (1837); "Oliver Goldsmith" (1849); "Mahomet" (1849); "Life of Washington" (1859). He died 28 November, 1859, at "Sunnyside," Tarrytown.
Irving LAWRENCE (SYDNEY BRODRIBB)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
LAWRENCE (SYDNEY BRODRIBB), an English actor and manager, son of Sir Henry Irving, born in 1872. He was educated at Marlborough College and in Paris. For three years he lived in Russia where he studied diplomacy. He left this for the stage in 1893. After tours in provincial companies, he played in his father's company from 1900 to 1904. This was followed by a tour in America. In 1912 he played leading parts in several important plays, including several Shakespearian plays. While returning to England in May, 1914, he was drowned in the "Empress of Ireland" disaster. He wrote several plays, including "Peter the Great"; "Richard Lovelace"; "The Typhoon."
Irving HENRY BRODRIBB, an English actor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY BRODRIBB, an English actor, son of Sir Henry Irving, born in 1870 in London. He was educated at New College, Oxford, and entered the bar in 1894. He soon gave this up for the stage, where he soon became a prominent figure. He became a manager in 1902. In 1906 and 1907 he made a tour in America which was followed by tours in Australia and South Africa. Following his return from the latter, he leased the Savoy Theater. He appeared as star in many successful plays. He wrote "Life of Judge Jeffreys" (1898); "Occasional Papers" (1906); "The Trial of Mrs. Maybrick" (1913). He died in 1919.
Irving SIR HENRY, an English actor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR HENRY, an English actor; born in Keinton, England, Feb. 6, 1838. His family name was Brodribb, which was changed to Irving by royal patent. He was trained to mercantile life, but went upon the stage in 1856, appearing in London a few years later. His rôles include Mephistopheles, Hamlet, Coriolanus, King Lear, Louis XI, Malvolio, Macbeth, and a repertory that has been presented not only in England, but in the United States, Australia, and France. He was knighted in 1895. He has published an edition of Shakespeare. He died Oct. 13, 1905.
Irving ISABEL, an American actress
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ISABEL, an American actress, born in Bridgeport, Conn., in 1871. She made her first appearance on the stage in 1887, and within a short time had become the leading woman at the Lyceum Theater in New York and in John Drew's Company. For several years she played leading parts in England. She played as leading woman and as star in many important plays. In 1889 she married William H. Thompson.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The life Aiton's set out in 1910 still stands in its essentials, down to the fiancée Matilda Hoffman, whose Bible and lock of hair Irving carried for fifty years. What has narrowed is the reputation: where 1910 readers knew the whole Geoffrey Crayon shelf, Irving now survives in general memory almost entirely through two Sketch Book tales, "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," while the five-volume Life of George Washington he laboured over at the end is little read. His Hudson riverside cottage, Sunnyside, was bought by John D. Rockefeller Jr. and has been open to visitors as a museum since 1947, and in 1996 the neighbouring village of North Tarrytown voted to rename itself Sleepy Hollow after his story.
Written for this edition, 2026.