Washington Irving

Washington Irving (April 3, 1783–November 28, 1859) was an American author of the early 19th century.

Irving was born in Manhattan.

A lawyer, he was a member of the American diplomatic staff in Britain and in Spain. He spoke Spanish. He was a prolific essayist who wrote widely respected biographies of George Washington and Muhammad as well as other historical figures. He also wrote books on 15th century Spain dealing with subjects such as Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra.

He is said to have humorously invented the idea that everyone before Columbus thought the earth was flat. He is also credited with coining the phrase "the almighty dollar".

Irving traveled on the Western frontier in the 1830s and recorded his glimpses of western tribes in A Tour on the Prairies (1835) and was one of the few 19th century figures to speak out against the mishandling of relations with the Native American tribes by Europeans:

It has been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America, in the early periods of colonization, to be doubly wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare, and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and interested writers.

Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were the first writers to earn acclaim in Europe. He is said to have mentored authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe.

He lived in his famous home of Sunnyside, which is still standing just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge. The property and the original house called "Wolfert's Roost" were originally owned by Wolfert Acker, about which he wrote the short story Wolfert's Roost.

It is believed that the city of Irving, Texas was named after him, as are Washington Street and Irving Street in Birmingham. His book Bracebridge Hall was the inspiration for the naming of the town of Bracebridge, Ontario.

Biography

His first book was A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Dietrich Knickerbocker (1809), a sly satire on self-important local history that brought "Knickerbocker" into the American lexicon, and then wider English usage.

Irving left for Europe in 1815. In 1819-1820 he published The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, which included his best known stories, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip van Winkle". The latter story was written overnight, while Irving was staying with his sister Sarah and her husband, Henry van Wart in Birmingham, England - a place which also inspired some of his other works. Bracebridge Hall or The Humorists, A Medley is based on Aston Hall, there.

Irving wrote The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828, the Conquest of Granada one year later, and, the Voyages of the Companions of Columbus in 1831.

Irving returned to the U.S. in 1832. Among his subsequent works were three "Western" books, designed at the time to put to rest that his time in England and Spain has not turned him into an American-only-by-birth. His first western book was A Tour on the Prairies, published in 1835; the beginning of Chapter 10 includes the following, interpreted by some literary critics to be a comment on conerns about his public persona:

We send our youth abroad to grow luxurious and effeminate in Europe; it appears to me, that a previous tour on the prairies would be more likely to produce that manliness, simplicity, and self-dependence, most in unison with our political institutions.

He second western book was called Astoria; he wrote it during a six-month stay with the then-retired John Jacob Astor. The book was a worshipful account of Astor's attempt to establish a fur trading colony at present-day Astoria, Oregon.

During Irving's stay with Astor, Benjamin Bonneville paid a visit. His tales of his three years in Oregon Country was said to have enthralled Irving. A month or two later, when Irving encountered Bonneville in Washington, D.C., Bonneville, struggling to write about his journey, decided to instead sell his maps and notes to Irving for $1000. Irving used that material as the basis for his 1837 book The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, which most believe to be the best of his three western books.

Bibliography

• The Life of Washington Irving, by Stanley T. Williams, 1935.

External links

• Biography (http://www.irvingtexas.com/washington.php?n=5) from the Irving, Texas Convention & Visitors Bureau website
• Ordinance No. 7345 (http://www.irvingtexas.com/ordinance.php), adopted in 1998 by the City Council of Irving, Texas, making the case that the city is named after Irving
• Washington Irving in Birmingham (http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/irving), from that city's website
• Template:Imdb name
• Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (http://www.sleepyhollowcemetery.org/)
• His writings
  • Project Gutenberg e-texts of several of Irving's works (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?amode=start&author=Irving%2c%20Washington)
  • Excerpt from White on Red (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/irving.html), Irving's temperate and liberal views of native American rights
  • The Adventure of the German Student (http://www.xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Tales_dir/adventureGermanStudent.html) (short story, full text, from a fan's personal website)
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (http://www.amlit.com/twentyss/chap4.html), from another fan's personal websitebg:Уошингтън Ървинг

de:Washington Irving eo:Washington IRVING es:Washington Irving fr:Washington Irving pt:Washington Irving