Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Pages of
The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow and Other Writings

From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world.

(from “The Voyage,” page 52)

 

“There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. No man knows what the wife of his bosom is—no man knows what a ministering angel she is—until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.”

(from “The Wife,” page 68)

 

A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

(from “Rip Van Winkle,” page 77)

 

“Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.”

(from “Rip Van Winkle,” page 81)

 

There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed.

(from “The Mutability of Literature,” page 107)

 

There is no duenna so rigidly prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a superannuated coquette.

(from “The Spectre Bridegroom,” page 121)

 

The spectre is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

(from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” page 164)

 

In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity.

(from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” pages 164-165)

 

On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was headless!—but his horror was still more increased, on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle.

(from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” pages 187-188)

 

“It may be one of the royal family for aught I know, for they are all stout gentlemen!”

(from “The Stout Gentleman,” page 210)

 

“A man is never a man till he can defy wind and weather, range woods and wilds, sleep under a tree, and live on bass-wood leaves!”

(from “Dolph Heyliger,” page 251)

 

I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.

(from “To the Reader,” page 289)

 

“To rescue from oblivion the memory of former incidents, and to render a just tribute of renown to the many great and wonderful transactions of our Dutch progenitors, Diedrich Knickerbocker, native of the city of New York, produces this historical essay.”

(from A
History of New York,
page 383)

 

It has already been hinted in this most authentic history, that in the domestic establishment of William the Testy “the gray mare was the better horse”; in other words, that his wife “ruled the roast,” and in governing the governor, governed the province, which might thus be said to be under petticoat government.

(from
A History of New York,
page 438)

Published by Barnes & Noble Books
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See “A Note on the Text” for original publication information
on the works included in this volume.

 

Published in 2006 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,
Notes, Note on the Text, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

 

Introduction, A Note on the Text, Notes, and For Further Reading

Copyright © 2006 by Peter Norberg.

 

Note on Washington Irving, The World of Washington Irving and
The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow,
Inspired by Washington Irving, and Comments & Questions
Copyright © 2006 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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without the prior written permission of the publisher.

 

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ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-225-3 ISBN-10: 1-59308-225-8

eISBN : 978-1-411-43253-6

LC Control Number 2005932486

 

Produced and published in conjunction with:
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

 

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

QM

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FIRST PRINTING

Washington Irving, arguably the first American author to earn international literary acclaim, was born on April 3, 1783, in New York City. The Americans had won independence from Britain (the Treaty of Paris would be signed in September), and William Irving, a well-to-do merchant who had emigrated from Scotland, named his eleventh and youngest child after General George Washington. When Irving was seventeen, he began apprenticing in New York legal firms, including that of a former attorney general of New York, Josiah Hoffman. Irving soon realized, however, that his true interests lay in writing.