Washington Irving (1783- 1859)

Washington Irving was named after his parents' hero, George Washington. He was born and raised in New York City, somewhere near Wall Street, where he grew up as the youngest of 11 children. His father was a rich merchant, and his mother was a respectable Englishwoman. Even at a young age, Irving had a love for books. His favorite books were adventure stories: Robinson Crusoe, Sinbad the Sailor , and The World Displyed. Irving would always make his parents worry when he went looking for adventure himself, he would travel around the city constantly getting into danger or trouble. Later in his life, he would travel around the world.

Washington Irving was a man of many interests and talents; however, Irving became most well known for being the first American to make a living only on his writing. He began his career writing in newspapers and journals where he often worked in collaboration with his brothers. He wrote in Morning Chronicle (1802-03) and Salmagundi (1807-08). He was also editor of Analetic magazine in Philadelphia and New York from 1812 to 1814.

Although Irving was having great success in his career and social life, a personal tragedy happened. Irving's fiancée died at the age of seventeen in 1809. He wrote in a private letter to a friend "For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly."

Initially, Washington Irving liked to write under pen names. He wrote his first book A History of New York under the name 'Dietrich Knickerbocker' who was supposed to be the comical American scholar. The book made fun of the early Dutch settlers in Manhattan. Soon the word ‘Knickerbocker' was used to describe the early American writers, and eventually the word was used to mean a person from New York. This is where the New York basketball team got its name from, the New York Knickerbockers (Knicks).

Irving's next book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20) was also a huge success. The book was a collection of short stories (including The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ), which were highly influenced by German folktales. Irving got the idea for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow from a folktale recorded by Karl Musäus. The German folktale has a part that reads, "The headless horseman was often seen here. An old man who did not believe in ghosts told of meeting the headless horseman coming from his trip into the Hollow. The horseman made him climb up behind. They rode over bushes, hills, and swamps. When they reached the bridge, the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton. He threw the old man into the brook and sprang away over the treetops with a clap of thunder."

In 1815, Irving moved to Birmingham to live with his sister, her husband, and their four kids. His nieces and nephews loved him, and later in their lives, they would tell people how their uncle Irving would invent stories for them and their friends to entertain them. After his mother's death, Irving decided to stay in Europe for the next seventeen years of his life.

Irving lived in Dresden (1822-23), Paris (1825) and London (1824) where he had a romantic relationship with the writer Mary Shelly. As he traveled, he wrote about the places he visited and the things he saw. Bracebridge Hall (1822) was written about the typical life in England. Soon Washington Irving settled in Spain where he wrote Columbus (1828), Conquest of Granada (1829), and The Companions of Columbus (1831). These books were based on very careful research about Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who sailed under Spanish commission. The Spanish people were so happy with Irving's work that they elected him to the Real Academia de la Historia.

Irving was happy in Europe, but he was a true American at heart, so missing his family and home, he went back to America to live with his brother, Ebenezer, and his brother's children in Sunnyside, Tarrytown. Sunnyside is a mansion in a small town in upstate New York.

Wanting to explore, Irving set off for the west and south with two companions, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth and Charles Joseph Latrobe. Together they explored from the frontier of Fort Gibson to Oklahoma. Irving wrote about his explorations in The Cayon Miscellany (1835) and A Tour of the Prairies 1835). Henry Leavitt Ellsworth also wrote a good story about their explorations.

After Irving explored America, he returned to Sunnyside where he lived from 1836 to 1842. In the year 1842, Irving traveled back to Spain where, because he was a well-respected writer and had been trained as a lawyer, he was appointed as the Spanish Ambassador. This meant that he would be a diplomatic representative in Europe for the United States.

Finally, Irving moved back to Sunnyside, and he became the president of the New York Public Library. He lived happily with Ebenezer and Ebenezer's family for the rest of his life. Some of his later works include Mahomet and his Successors (1850), Wolfert's Roost (1855), and his five-volume, The Life of George Washington .

Irving died in Tarrytown on November 28, 1859, but he will always be remembered for his outstanding work, his love for adventure, and for being the first person in America to believe that you can be a successful writer.