Washington Irving

From The Oxford Companion to American Literature, 6th ed., ed. Hart and Leininger:

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York City, the youngest of 11 children of a wealthy merchant who had sided with the rebels in the Revolution. Precocious and impressionable, the boy was early influenced by the literary interests of his brothers William and Peter, but in 1798 concluded his education at private schools and entered a law office. His legal studies soon lost their appeal, although he continued in various offices until 1804, varying his occupation by a frontier journey (1803) through upper New York state and into Canada, and by writing for the Morning Chronicle and The Corrector, newspapers edited by his brother Peter. For the Chronicle (1802-3) he wrote the "Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.," a series of youthful satires on New York society, which won him recognition. To restore his failing health and to further his education, he traveled in Europe (1804-6) where he collected material later used in stories and essays.

Although he was admitted to the bar upon his return,  he lost interest in the law and turned seriously to literature. Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and Others (1807-8) is a series of satirical miscellanies concerned with New York society. The leading essays were written by Irving, his brothers, and William Irving's brother-in-law., J. K. Paulding, all members of the group known as the 'Nine Worthies' or 'Lads of Kilkenny' of 'Cockloft Hall'. Federalist in politics, conservative in social attitude, and humorous in intention, these early essays represent the position and manner to which Irving was to cling throughout his career. He was now famous as author, wit, and man of society, and, to further his reputation, turned to the creation of the comic Dutch-American scholar Diedrich Knickerbocker, on whose burlesque History of New York he was occupied until 1809. This work, called 'the first great book of comic literature written by an American', although ostensibly concerned with the history of the Dutch occupation was also a Federalist critique of Jeffersonian democracy and a whimsical satire on pedantry and literary classics.

Before its completion, Irving suffered a tragic loss in the death of his fiancée, Matilda Hoffman. According to sentimental biographers, who disregarded later love affairs, he remained a bachelor to be faithful to her memory. Certainly he was profoundly affected at the time. In spite of the success of the History, he deserted creative literature during the next six years, when he was occupied in business with his brothers, in collecting the poems of Thomas Campbell (1810), in editing the Analetic Magazine (1813-14), a popular miscellany of reprints from foreign periodicals, and in social and political activities in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. Toward the end of the War of 1812, he served as an aide-de-camp to the governor, and in 1815 he planned a cruise to the Mediterranean with Decatur; but, when this became impossible, he sailed alone for Liverpool, to take charge of the family business there.

During the next two years he tried desperately to maintain the failing business, but in 1818 it went into bankruptcy, and he was forced to write for a living. He had already been impressed by the beauties of the English countryside as interpreted by the romantic poets, and, encouraged by Scott, now returned to writing his most successful work, The Sketch Book (1819-20), containing familiar essays on English life, and Americanized versions of European folk tales in "Rip van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." As Geoffrey Crayon, the pseudonym by which the book was signed, Irving was now a celebrity, lionized in English and French society, and the intimate of such men as Scott, Byron, and Moore. In Paris (1820) he wrote plays with J. H. Payne, a collaboration to which he occasionally returned for several years. Bracebridge Hall (1822) is another book of romantic sketches, less important than The Sketch Book, but equally well received.

Continuing in his search for fictional materials, Irving now traveled in Germany (1822-23), spending the winter at Dresden, where he fell in love with an English girl, Emily Foster, who seems to have refused his proposal of marriage. After a year in Paris, he returned to England and published Tales of a Traveller (1824), so adversely criticised that Irving was nearly discouraged  from further literary activity. After two unproductive years in France, during which he is supposed to have vied with Payne for the affections of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, he became a diplomatic attaché in Spain (1826-29), living for a time in Madrid at the home of the biographer Obadiah Rich, and engaged in research for his scholarly but popular History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), based principally on the work of the Spanish scholar Navarrete. This was followed by A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829) and a 'Spanish Sketch Book', The Alhambra (1832), recounting Spanish legends and describing the famous monument.

Irving was secretary of the U.S. legation in London (1829-32), and then returned to New York, after an absence of 17 years, to be welcomed enthusiastically as the first American author to achieve international fame. Again seeking picturesque literary  backgrounds, he made an adventurous trip to the Western frontier. This was described in A Tour on the Prairies, published as a part of The Crayon Miscellany (3 vols., 1835). The tour also resulted in Astoria (1836), an account of the fur-trading empire of John Jacob Astor, written with Pierre Irving; and the Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A. (1837). Irving's Western Journals were published in 1944.

After a few years at his home, Sunnyside, during which he declined the nomination for mayor of New York City and the secretaryship of the navy offered him by Van Buren, as well as giving up a plan to write a Conquest of Mexico in favor of Prescott, Irving returned to his favorite place of exile, becoming minister to Spain (1842-45). His position was made difficult by the Spanish insurrection (1843), and after his resignation two years later he spent a year in London on a diplomatic mission concerning the Oregon Question. Again at Sunnyside, he passed the remaining 13 years of his life in company of his beloved nieces and innumerable friends, acknowledged as the leading American author, in spite of his waning powers, as evidenced in Oliver Goldsmith (1840), a biography of one of his literary masters; A Book of the Hudson (1849) and Wolfert's Roost (1855) collection of sketches; Mahomet and his Successors (2 vols., 1849-50), conventional biographies; and the monumental Life of Washington (5 vols., 1855-59), planned as early as 1825, but completed in the last year of his life, just before his health finally failed. Bare of the graces of his early writing, this triumph of scholarship crowned an erratic career that seldom retained its literary focus for more than a few years at a time, but which served in many ways to consolidate the culture of the U.S. and Europe. Unlike his contemporary, Cooper, Irving saw the European past in an aura of romance, and, except for the gentle satire of his early works, consistently avoided coming to grips with modern democratic life. His graceful, humorous, stylistically careful writing is in the tradition of Addison, Steele, and Goldmith. In subject and method he sought the traditional and the picturesque. A scholarly edition of his Complete Works began publication in 1969.



Salmagundi; or, the Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. and Others, satirical essays and poems, published in 20 periodical pamphlets (Jan. 24, 1807-Jan. 25, 1808) by Washington and William Irving and J. K. Paulding, who used such pseudonyms as Anthony Evergreen, Jeremy Cockloft the Younger, Will Wizard, and Pindar Cockloft, Esq. The work was collected in book form (1808).

Modeled on the Spectator, these whimsical pieces travesty contemporary New York tastes, society, and politics, showing the authors' aristocratic Federalism. The 'letters' of the visiting Mustapha-Ru-a Dub Keli Kahn to Asem Haac-hem satirically describe the 'mobocratic' and 'logocratic' Jeffersonian democracy, while other essays and poems deal in a humorous, pseudo-learned style with such various topics as fashions in women's clothing, the vulgarity of parvenus, theatrical and musical criticism, style in literature, and caricatures of celebrities. A second series of Salmagundi papers was written by Paulding alone (May 1819-Sept. 1820).

A History of New York, From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, burlesque history by Irving, published in 1809 annnd revised in 1812, 1819, and 1848. It satirized the methods of contemporary historians, the heroic style of epic poetry, and men and events during the Dutch administration as well as during its own period. Although Irving follows the history of New Netherland as then known, his satirical intention causes him to alter or disregard facts, as when, in the figure of William the Testy (William Kieft) he draws a Federalist caricature of Jefferson. According to the preface, the fictitious chronicler was "a small brisk looking old gentleman . . . a very inquisitive body . . . although a little queer in his ways."

Book I contains a cosmogony and description of the world, parodying contemporary histories, and a burlesque account of the discovery and peopling of America. Book II chronicles the voyage of Hudson, early Dutch colonization, and the founding of New Amsterdam, and gives traditional portraits of Dutch colonial types. Book III describes the "golden reign of the stolid governor Wouter Van Twiller, who was "exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference," and whose head was "a perfect sphere"; the profound deliberation of his burgomasters over their pipes; conditions in early New Amsterdam; the hostility of the neighboring Yankees of Connecticut; and the establishment of Fort Goed Hoop. Book IV tells of the governorship of William the Testy, so learned that he was "good for nothing"; his pugnacity; his war "by proclamation" with the Yankees; his many laws, partisan quarrels, and border disputes. Books V, VI, and VII chronicle the reign of Peter Stuyvesant (Peter the Headstrong): his political reforms and military adventures in Delaware; and his unsuccessful defense of New Amsterdam against the conquering British force.

The Sketch Book, familiar essays and tales by Irving, written under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published serially in the U.S. (1819-20) and in book form in England (1820). Its genial humor and graceful style made it successful both in the U.S. and abroad, where American authors were not yet recognized. Most of the sketches concern his observations as an American visitor in England (e.g. 'Westminster Abbey,' 'The Christmas Dinner,' 'Stratford-on-Avon,' 'John Bull,' and 'The Stage-Coach') but six chapters deal with American scenes. Of these 'Rip van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' are adaptations of German folk tales to the New York backgrounds of Diedrich Knickerbocker. 'English Writers of America' opposes the criticisms of the U.S. by British tourists; 'Traits of Indian Character' is a romantic defense of the American tribes; 'Philip of Pokanoket' is an account of King Philip; and 'The Angler' is a whimsical self-exposure of the author as preferring to read Izaak Walton rather than pursue the art of angling in person.

Rip van Winkle, tale by Irving, published in The Sketch Book (1819-20). Joseph Jefferson is famous for his acting of the title role in a dramatic version, which he made with Boucicault in 1865. Rip, an indolent, good-natured Dutch-American, lives with his shrewish wife in a village on the Hudson during the years before the Revolution. One day, while hunting in the Catskills with his dog Wolf, he meets a dwarf-like stranger dressed in the ancient Dutch fashion. He helps him to carry a keg, and with him joins a party silently engaged in a game of ninepins. After drinking of the liquor they furnish, he falls into a sleep which lasts 20 years, during which the Revolutionary War takes place. He awakes as an old man, returns to his altered village, is greeted by his old dog, who dies of the excitement, and finds that his wife has long been dead. Rip and his associates are almost forgotten, but he goes on to live with his daughter, now grown and the mother of a family, and soon wins new friends by his generosity and cheerfulness.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, short story by Irving, possibly based on a German source. It was published in The Sketch Book (1820). An operetta, The Headless Horseman (1936), with music by Douglas Moore and libretto by Stephen Vincent Benét, is based on it.

Ichabod Crane, an assertive, ingenuous Yankee schoolmaster, lanky and angular in appearance, lives among the Dutch folk in Sleepy Hollow on the Hudson, in post-Revolutionary days. He loves Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of a rich farmer, and is the victim of many pranks by the friends of his chief rival for her affections, Brom Van Brunt or Brom Bones, a reckless horseman and neighbourhood hero. At an autumn quilting party at Van Tassel's the guests entertain themselves with stories of ghosts and witches, and Brom tells of the headless horseman said to haunt the region. Ichabod is discouraged in his suit for Katrina, and on his way home, late at night, riding a borrowed plow horse, is frightened by a headless apparition that rides after him and throws a round object at his head. Ichabod is never again seen in Sleepy Hollow, although the next morning the round object is discovered to be a pumpkin. Brom marries Katrina, and Ichabod's tale becomes a legend of the countryside.

Bracebridge Hall; or, The Humorists: A Medley,  49 tales and sketches by Irving, published in 1822 under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Resembling its predecessor, The Sketch Book, the collection includes stories with English, French, and Spanish settingss, but is chiefly remembered for "Dolph Heyliger" and its sequel, "The Storm-Ship," which recount the adventures of a New York lad who undertakes to discredit the legend of a haunted house, but encounters its ghost and recovers a fabulous buried treasure, as well as marrying an heiress. Americanized versions of the Flying Dutchman theme are presented in "The Storm-Ship," and other stories in the volume are also based on European folklore.

Tales of a Traveller, 32 stories and sketches by Irving, published in 1824. The volume, resembling its predecessors The Sketch Book and Bracebridge Hall, was the product of notes and anecdotes gathered mainly during a tour of Germany (1822-23). The first three sections deal with European backgrounds: "Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman," "Buckthorne and His Friends," and "The Italian Banditti'; while the fourth section, "The Money-Diggers," contains five tales "found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker," set in New York, and dealing with buried-treasure legends about Captain Kidd and other pirates.

The Alhambra, 41 sketches by Irving, published in 1832 and revised and enlarged 1852, the result of the author's residence (1829) in the ancient Moorish palace at Granada in Spain. His purpose was "to depict its half-Spanish, half Oriental character; .  . . to revive the traces of grace and beauty fas fading from its walls; to record the regal and chivalrous traditions . . . and the whimsical and supertitious legends of the motley race now burrowing among its ruins." Tales of medieval Moorish Spain are interspersed with architectural and other descriptions, and anecdotes of the author's experiences among the native residents.

The Crayon Miscellany is a series of three volumes published under this pseudonym [Geoffrey Crayon, pseudonym of Irving].  The books are A Tour of the Prairies, Legends of the Conquest of Spain, and Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey.

A Tour on the Prairies, autobiographical narrative by Irving, published as the first volume of The Crayon Miscellany (1832), in which he was accompanied by Charles J. Latrobe, a British traveler; Count de Pourtalès, a Swiss youth, Henry L. Ellsworth, a Government commissioner; and a little swarthy, meagre, wiry French creole, amed Antoine, but familiarly dubbed Tonish, a kind of Gil Blas of the frontier'. From Fort Gibson, in the present Oklahoma, Irving and his companions traveled westward, living among the frontiersmen and in camps and buffalo-hunting grounds of the Pawnee, Osage, and Creek tribes. Irving was particularly interested in gathering examples of folklore, and the Tour recounts such legends as that of the Pacing Mustang. The descriptions of Western life are presented in Irving's characteristically softened and picturesque manner, and when compared with Ellsworth's manuscript account show many omissions and alterations of fact.

Astoria, now a town near the mouth of the Columbia river in northwest Oregon, was founded as Fort Clatsop (1805) by the Lewis and Clark expedition. In 1811 John Jacob Astor founded a fur trading post at the site, but during the war of 1812 the Astor interests were sold to the British. Astoria was restored to the U.S. in accordance with the Treaty of Ghent (1818). Irving's Astoria (1836, revised 1849) is a history of Astor's fur trade in the northwest. The region also appears in fiction, e.g. Archie Binn's You Rolling River.

The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837), narrative by Washington Irving from the papers of Captain Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville (1796-1878). Bonneville, a West Pointer, led expeditions through the western slopes of the Rockies in 1832-35. Irving, at work on his novel Astoria, met Bonneville at the home of John Jacob Astor, bought the explorer's papers and maps, and shaped his story as a kind of sequel to Astoria.

Mary Shelley

 

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