A Pioneer of Imagination

Puritan sermons
Essays
Political Speeches
Almanacs
Histories and personal narratives
ALL NON-FICTION

Born 1783 in NYC

Died 1859 in
Sunnyside, NY
Most famous for his
short stories: Rip
Van Winkle, The
Devil and Tom
Walker and The
Legend of Sleepy
Hollow

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Irving was the first to write for pleasure at a time

when writing was practical and for useful purposes.
He is the first American literary humorist.
He wrote the first modern short stories.
He was the first to write history and biography as
entertainment.
He introduced the nonfiction prose as a literary
genre.
His use of the gothic looks forward to Poe.

Irving had a genius for comic fictional narrators.

Irving was the foremost New York satirist.
In 1817, Irving finally had the courage to tell his
father he was out of managing the family business,
and was going to write.
He based his stories off of German Romantics,
folklore, and legends.
Irving was Americas first international literary
celebrity!
This was a role he gladly accepted! He loved people,
parties, and praise.

We best remember Washington Irving for Rip

Van Winkle who slept through the American
Revolution
AND the Headless Horseman who plagued a
Yankee schoolteacher Ichabod Crane in Sleepy
Hollow, in New Yorks lush Hudson Valley.

Romantic
(Irving, Melville)
Gothic

Transcendental

(Poe,
Hawthorne)

(Emerson,
Thoreau)