San Antonio College Library

"With quick eye, ready tongue, and alert recognition of absurdities, Washington Irving sits quietly at both ends of the American literary spectrum -- an expatriate seeking reverently in Europe for sources of culture, but most effective in realizing American characters enmeshed in American ideals; and at the same time a native myth-maker who wove indigenous lore into comic tales which became fables. His country's first, but not her best, romantic historian;...

Discusses the life and works of Washington Irving. Includes a chronology. It is the intention of this work to show that all Irving's books are readable today, that many are worth reading, and that a few demand reading and rereading. It is also its intent to demonstrate that Irving was not a short-story writer, but a composer of books: thus, a story in one of his books is more than that story alone, for it gains meaning from what came before and gives...

Product Description: The first American writer to make his pen his primary means of support, Washington Irving rocketed to fame at the age of 26. In 1809 he published A History of New York under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker to great acclaim. The public's appetite for all things Irving was insatiable; his name alone guaranteed sales. At the time, he was one of the most famous men in the world, a friend of Dickens, Hawthorne, and Longfellow,...

Describes the two-fold achievement of the life and work of Washington Irving, our nation's first great man of letters.

Tom Paine and republican religion -- Landscape as religion: Irving, Bryant, Cooper -- Transcendentalism and Emerson -- The cosmic optimism of Walt Whitman -- The pessimism of Mark Twain -- The cosmic loneliness of Robert Frost.