The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon

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The Floating Press, Apr 1, 2009 - Fiction - 595 pages
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon is the compilation of 34 short stories and essays by Washington Irving. It includes some of his most famous stories, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, and was one of the first works of American fiction to become popular in Britain and Europe. The tone of the stories varies widely, and they are held together by the powerful charm of their narrator, Geoffrey Crayon.
 

Contents

Preface to the Revised Edition
6
The Authors Account of Himself
16
The Voyage
21
Roscoe
32
The Wife
43
Rip Van Winkle
56
English Writers on America
88
Rural Life in England
103
Westminster Abbey
266
Christmas
284
The StageCoach
293
Christmas Eve
304
Christmas Day
322
The Christmas Dinner
343
London Antiques
365
Little Britain
375

The Broken Heart
115
The Art of BookMaking
125
A Royal Poet
136
The Country Church
158
The Widow and Her Son
167
A Sunday in London
179
The Boars Head Tavern Eastcheap
183
The Mutability of Literature
201
Rural Funerals
217
The Inn Kitchen
236
The Spectre Bridegroom
240
StratfordOnAvon
397
Traits of Indian Character
427
Philip of Pokanoket
445
John Bull
472
The Pride of the Village
490
The Angler
505
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
520
Lenvoy
572
Endnotes
576
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

Washington Irving, one of the first Americans to achieve international recognition as an author, was born in New York City in 1783. His A History of New York, published in 1809 under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a satirical history of New York that spanned the years from 1609 to 1664. Under another pseudonym, Geoffrey Crayon, he wrote The Sketch-book, which included essays about English folk customs, essays about the American Indian, and the two American stories for which he is most renowned--"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." Irving served as a member of the U.S. legation in Spain from 1826 to 1829 and as minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846. Following his return to the U.S. in 1846, he began work on a five-volume biography of Washington that was published from 1855-1859. Washington Irving died in 1859 in New York.

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