Table of content introduction

1.2Its place in the literature 
Irving returned from Europe to study law with his legal mentor Judge Josiah Ogden 
Hoffman in New York City. By his own admission, he was not a good student and 
barely passed the bar examination in 1806 He began socializing with a group of 
literate young men whom he dubbed "The Lads of Kilkenny", and he created the 
literary magazine Salmagundi in January 1807 with his brother William and his 
friend James Kirke Paulding, writing under various pseudonyms, such as William 
Wizard and Launcelot Langstaff. Irving lampooned New York culture and politics 
in a manner similar to the 20th century Mad magazine. Salmagundi was a moderate 
success, spreading Irving's name and reputation beyond New York. He gave New 
York City the nickname "Gotham" in its 17th issue dated November 11, 1807, an 
Anglo-Saxon word meaning "Goat's Town".The fictional "Diedrich Knickerbocker" 
from the frontispiece of A History of New York, a wash drawing by Felix O. C. 
DarleyPortrait of Washington Irving by John Wesley Jarvis from 1809Irving 
completed A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of 
the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809) while mourning the death of 
his 17-year-old fiancée Matilda Hoffman. It was his first major book and a satire on 
self-important local history and contemporary politics. Before its publication, Irving 
started a hoax by placing a series of missing person advertisements in New York 
newspapers seeking information on Diedrich Knickerbocker, a crusty Dutch 
historian who had allegedly gone missing from his hotel in New York City. As part 
of the ruse, he placed a notice from the hotel's proprietor informing readers that, if 
Mr. Knickerbocker failed to return to the hotel to pay his bill, he would publish a 
manuscript that Knickerbocker had left behind. Unsuspecting readers followed the 
story of Knickerbocker and his manuscript with interest, and some New York city 
5
Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle.” In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Other Stories. New York: Lancer 
Books, 1968. 

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officials were concerned enough about the missing historian to offer a reward for his 
safe return. Irving then published A History of New York on December 6, 1809, 
under the Knickerbocker pseudonym, with immediate critical and popular 
success. "It took with the public", Irving remarked, "and gave me celebrity, as an 
original work was something remarkable and uncommon in America".The name 
Diedrich Knickerbocker became a nickname for Manhattan residents in general and 
was adopted by the New York Knickerbockers basketball team. After the success 
of A History of New York, Irving searched for a job and eventually became an editor 
of Analectic Magazine, where he wrote biographies of naval heroes such as James 
Lawrence and Oliver Perry. He was also among the first magazine editors to 
reprint Francis Scott Key's poem "Defense of Fort McHenry", which was 
immortalized as "The Star-Spangled Banner". Irving initially opposed the War of 
1812 like many other merchants, but the British attack on Washington, D.C. in 1814 
convinced him to enlist. He served on the staff of Daniel Tompkins, governor of 
New York and commander of the New York State Militia, but he saw no real action 
apart from a reconnaissance mission in the Great Lakes region.[27]The war was 
disastrous for many American merchants, including Irving's family, and he left for 
England in mid-1815 to salvage the family trading company. He remained in Europe 
for the next 17 years. Life in Europe Irving popularized the nickname "Gotham" for 
New York City, and he is credited with inventing the expression "the almighty 
dollar". The surname of his fictional Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker is 
generally associated with New York and New Yorkers, as found in New York's 
professional basketball team The New York Knickerbockers.One of Irving's most 
lasting contributions to American culture is in the way that Americans celebrate 
Christmas. In his 1812 revisions to A History of New York, he inserted a dream 
sequence featuring St. Nicholas soaring over treetops in a flying wagon, an 
invention which others dressed up as Santa Claus. In his five Christmas stories 
in The Sketch Book, Irving portrayed an idealized celebration of old-fashioned 
Christmas customs at a quaint English manor which depicted English Christmas 
festivities that he experienced while staying in England, which had largely been 
abandoned. He used text from The Vindication of Christmas (London 1652) of old 
English Christmas traditions, and the book contributed to the revival and 
reinterpretation of the Christmas holiday in the United States. Irving introduced the 
erroneous idea that Europeans believed the world to be flat prior to the discovery of 
the New World in his biography of Christopher Columbus, yet the flat-Earth 
myth has been taught in schools as fact to many generations of Americans. American 
painter John Quidor based many of his paintings on scenes from the works of Irving 
about Dutch New York, including such paintings as Ichabod Crane Flying from the 
Headless Horseman (1828), The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1849), and The 

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Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane (1858). The village of Dearman, New 
York, changed its name to "Irvington" in 1854 to honor Washington Irving, who was 
living in nearby "Sunnyside", which is preserved as a museum.[118] Influential 
residents of the village prevailed upon the Hudson River Railroad, which had 
reached the village by 1849, to change the name of the train station to "Irvington", 
and the village incorporated as Irvington on April 16, 1872. The town 
of Knickerbocker, Texas, was founded by two of Irving's nephews, who named it in 
honor of their uncle's literary pseudonym.
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The city of Irving, Texas states that it is named for Washington Irving. A street 
in San Francisco, Irving Street, is named after him. The Irving Park neighborhood 
in Chicago is named for him as well, though the original name of the subdivision 
was Irvington and then later Irving Park before annexation to Chicago. Gibbons 
Memorial Park, located in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, is located on Irving cliff, which 
was named after him. The Irvington neighborhood in Indianapolis is also one of the 
many communities named after him. Irving is largely credited as the first American 
Man of Letters and the first to earn his living solely by his pen. Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow acknowledged Irving's role in promoting American literature in 
December 1859: "We feel a just pride in his renown as an author, not forgetting that, 
to his other claims upon our gratitude, he adds also that of having been the first to 
win for our country an honourable name and position in the History of 
Letters".Irving perfected the American short story and was the first American writer 
to set his stories firmly in the United States, even as he poached from German or 
Dutch folklore. He is also generally credited as one of the first to write in the 
vernacular and without an obligation to presenting morals or being didactic in his 
short stories, writing stories simply to entertain rather than to enlighten. He also 
encouraged many would-be writers. As George William Curtis noted, there "is not 
a young literary aspirant in the country, who, if he ever personally met Irving, did 
not hear from him the kindest words of sympathy, regard, and 
encouragement".Edgar Allan Poe, on the other hand, felt that Irving should be given 
credit for being an innovator but that the writing itself was often unsophisticated. 
"Irving is much over-rated", Poe wrote in 1838, "and a nice distinction might be 
drawn between his just and his surreptitious and adventitious reputation—between 
what is due to the pioneer solely, and what to the writer".A critic for the New-York 
Mirror wrote: "No man in the Republic of Letters has been more overrated than Mr. 
Washington Irving". Some critics claimed that Irving catered to British sensibilities, 
and one critic charged that he wrote "of and for England, rather than his own 
6
Kammen, Michael. Colonial New York: A History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. 

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country".Other critics were more supportive of Irving's style. William Makepeace 
Thackeray was the first to refer to Irving as the "ambassador whom the New World 
of Letters sent to the Old", a banner picked up by writers and critics throughout the 
19th and 20th centuries. "He is the first of the American humorists, as he is almost 
the first of the American writers", wrote critic H.R. Hawless in 1881, "yet belonging 
to the New World, there is a quaint Old World flavor about him". Early critics often 
had difficulty separating Irving the man from Irving the writer. "The life of 
Washington Irving was one of the brightest ever led by an author", wrote Richard 
Henry Stoddard, an early Irving biographer. Later critics, however, began to review 
his writings as all style with no substance. "The man had no message", said 
critic Barrett Wendell. 
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