Life and Works of Washington Irving, Embracing the Following Volumes: The Sketch-Book; The Alhambra; The Conquest of Granada; Legends of the Conquest of Spain; Tales of a Traveller; Bracebridge Hall; Knickerbocker's History of New York; Voyages and Disco…

xxx, 856 pp. Gilt edges. Washington Irving (born April 3, 1783, New York, New York, U.S.—died November 28, 1859, Tarrytown, New York) writer called the “first American man of letters.” He is best known for the short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” The favourite and last of 11 children of an austere Presbyterian father and a genial Anglican mother, young, frail Irving grew up in an atmosphere of indulgence. He escaped a college education, which his father required of his older sons, but read intermittently at the law, notably in the office of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, with whose pretty daughter Matilda he early fell in love. He wrote a series of whimsically satirical essays over the signature of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., published in Peter Irving’s newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, in 1802–03. He made several trips up the Hudson, another into Canada for his health, and took an extended tour of Europe in 1804–06.