The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon

Description

The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon is a collection of short stories by Washington Irving, including two of his best and most well-known stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The collection features a number of different topics and genres. From emotional stories such as The Widow and Her Son to humorous stories, from picaresque to charming stories inspired by folk tales, The Sketch Book has something for every reader – some of the stories and essays deal with topics and themes typically American, while others elaborate scenes taken from English life. However diverse the topics may seem, though, they are all linked together by the powerful presence of the narrators, Geoffrey Crayon, the pseudonym that Irving would continue to use throughout his literary career and Irving’s other pseudonym and literary identity, Diedrich Knickerbocker, a fictional Dutch historian and their interest in human behavior and their insight into human nature.

The Sketch Book was first published in series in 1819-1820, appearing in seven installments and then in book form, too. The stories raised instant interest and appreciation – as a matter of fact, the collection was among the first books that enjoyed equal popularity among readers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, praised by readers and critics alike for its mature, graceful style as well as for the benevolent and understanding attitude the narrator adopts towards the other characters.

There are two distinct versions of the collection – one of them was intended for the American audience and comprises only 29 sketches organized in seven parts; the longer British version was published in two volumes and contains three essays that were not included in the American version. The author revised the collection in 1848 and he added two more essays while also changing the original order of the sketches by moving The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to a more prominent point in the collection.
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