Irving is doing more than simply filling out the pages of his book with an occasional story set in America. He is using the conventional genres that were popular with readers of magazines and gift books—the observational essay or character sketch written in a confessional mode—as a platform for staging stories mildly Gothic in tone and content. He would take this method a step further in Tales
of a Traveller,
the first of his collections in which fiction predominates over travel narrative. Divided into four books,
Tales
lacks the unity that a common setting gives to
Bracebridge Hall,
but Irving compensates for this by creating tale-telling contests, or by using frame-narratives to nest a story within a story, as with the interrelated series that includes “Adventure of the Mysterious Picture,” “Adventure of the Mysterious Stranger,” and “The Story of the Young Italian.” Although Irving originally intended to use his travels through Germany and Italy as the organizational premise for
Tales,
he abandoned this realist narrative framework and told his stories as he would. He felt that the final manuscript was uneven but also believed it contained some of his best writing. Critics in England and America unfortunately did not agree. They found it imitative and even vulgar for its moments of sexual innuendo and for the darker psychological strain of tales such as “Adventure of the German Student.” As a critic in the October 1824 issue of the
Westminster Review
made painfully clear, Irving’s vogue in literary London had passed.
Geoffrey’s fame was occasioned by the fact of his being a
prodigy;
a prodigy for show—such as La Belle Sauvage, or the learned pig: up to the time of Geoffrey, there were no Belles Lettres in America, no native
litterateurs,
and he shot up at once with true American growth, a triumphant proof of what had so long been doubted and denied, namely, that the sentimental plant may flourish even on that republican soil.
But now, this critic continued, Irving catered to the tastes of a shallow, bourgeois audience, providing them with “a little pathos, a little sentiment to excite tears as a pleasurable emotion,” yet little of “solid matter.” Still, Tales sold well and Irving’s reputation with the public was not spoiled by the poor critical reception it received.
His interest in writing fiction was dampened, though, and he turned to popular history and biography instead, like that which he had written in
A History of New York
but without the satirical overtone. He traveled to Madrid in 1826 and, at the suggestion of Alexander Everett, the American minister to Spain, began translating Martin Fernandez de Navarette’s history of Columbus. He eventually abandoned the idea of a direct translation, choosing to write a biography of his own from sources he culled from the private library of Obadiah Rich, an American consul in Madrid to whom Everett introduced him. His
A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus
was published in 1828, and the other works associated with Irving’s Spanish period soon followed: A Chronicle
of the Conquest of Granada
(1829),
Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus
(1831), and
The Alhambra
(1832).
With
The Alhambra,
Irving returned to fiction, and in that same year, he returned to America after a seventeen-year absence. He continued to write prolifically, producing dozens of stories for the
Knickerbocker,
a magazine named after one of his most famous narrators, and three novel-length books—A
Tour of the Prairies
(1835),
Astoria
(1836), and
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A.
(1837). None of these, however, captured the depth of emotion Irving was able to distill into
The Sketch-Book.
In 1842 he returned to Europe, having agreed to serve as minister to Spain under the Tyler administration. When he returned to America for good in 1846, he retired to Sunnyside, the “neglected cottage” situated on the banks of the Hudson, which he had renovated as his own Sleepy Hollow retreat. The major work of his later years was a five-volume biography of his namesake,
The Life of George Washington.
In 1859 he finished the final volume with the help of his nephew Pierre Irving, who had taken over the management of his literary estate. He died that same year, having completed this last great memorial to the nation whose birth coincided with his own.
Peter Norberg
received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1998. Since 1997 he has been Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. A specialist on the writers asso ciated with the transcendentalist movement, he has written and lectured extensively on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and the critical reaction to transcendentalism in the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. He also has published articles on Herman Melville and the poetry of Richard Henry Stoddard. His future projects include a history of Emerson’s career as a public lecturer.
A Note on the Text
This edition contains stories from three of Irving’s collections,
The Sketch-Book
(1820),
Bracebridge Hall
(1822), and
Tales of a Traveller
(1824), as well as selections from his early writings:
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. (1802), Salmagundi
(1807-1808), and A
History of New York
(1809). The text of this edition is based on the Author’s Revised Edition that was issued by Putnam in New York in 1848. With the exception of A
History of New York,
the selections are arranged chronologically in the order in which Irving published them. In the Author’s Revised Edition, Irving made substantial changes to the style and content of A
History.
Accordingly, the selections from that volume are placed at the end of this edition. Readers interested in the 1809 edition of A
History
and any other textual matters should consult
The Complete Works of Washington Irving,
completed under the general editorship of Henry A. Pochmann, Herbert L. Kleinfield, and Richard Dilworth Rust (see “For Further Reading”).
SELECTIONS FROM
LETTERS OF JONATHAN OLDSTYLE, GENT.
1
Letter I
M
r. Editor,—If the observations of an odd old fellow are not wholly superfluous, I would thank you to shove them into a spare corner of your paper.
It is a matter of amusement to an uninterested spectator like myself, to observe the influence fashion has on the dress and deportment of its votaries,
a
and how very quick they fly from one extreme to the other.
A few years since the rage was,—very high crowned hats with very narrow brims, tight neckcloth, tight coat, tight jacket, tight small-clothes, and shoes loaded with enormous silver buckles; the hair craped, plaited, queued, and powdered;—in short, an air of the greatest spruceness and tightness diffused over the whole person.
The ladies, with their tresses neatly turned up over an immense cushion; waist a yard long, braced up with stays into the smallest compass, and encircled by an enormous hoop; so that the fashionable belle resembled a walking bottle.
Thus dressed, the lady was seen, with the most bewitching languor, reclining on the arm of an extremely attentive beau, who, with a long cane, decorated with an enormous tassel, was carefully employed in removing every stone, stick, or straw that might impede the progress of his tottering companion, whose high-heeled shoes just brought the points of her toes to the ground.
What an alteration has a few years produced! We now behold our gentlemen, with the most studious carelessness and almost slovenliness of dress; large hat, large coat, large neckcloth, large pantaloons, large boots, and hair scratched into every careless direction, lounging along the streets in the most apparent listlessness and vacuity of thought; staring with an unmeaning countenance at every passenger, or leaning upon the arm of some kind fair one for support, with the other hand crammed into his breeches’ pocket. Such is the picture of a modern beau,—in his dress stuffing himself up to the dimensions of a Hercules,
b
in his manners affecting the helplessness of an invalid.
The belle who has to undergo the fatigue of dragging along this sluggish animal has chosen a character the very reverse,—emulating in her dress and actions all the airy lightness of a sylph, she trips along with the greatest vivacity. Her laughing eye, her countenance enlivened with affability and good-humor, inspire with kindred animation every beholder, except the torpid being by her side, who is either affecting the fashionable sangfroid,
c
or is wrapt up in profound contemplation of himself.
Heavens! how changed are the manners since I was young! Then, how delightful to contemplate a ball-room,—such bowing, such scraping, such complimenting; nothing but copperplate speeches
d
to be heard on both sides; no walking but in minuet measure;
e
nothing more common than to see half a dozen gentlemen knock their heads together in striving who should first recover a lady’s fan or snuff-box that had fallen.
But now, our youths no longer aim at the character of pretty gentlemen; their greatest Ambition is to be called lazy dogs, careless fellows, &c., &c. Dressed up in the mammoth style, our buck saunters into the ball-room in a surtout, hat under arm, cane in hand; strolls round with the most vacant air; stops abruptly before such lady as he may choose to honor with his attention; entertains her with the common slang of the day, collected from the conversation of hostlers, footmen, portors, &c., until his string of smart sayings is run out, and then lounges off to entertain some other fair one with the same unintelligible jargon. Surely, Mr. Editor, puppyism
f
must have arrived to a climax; it must turn; to carry it to a greater extent seems to me impossible.
JONATHAN OLDSTYLE
NOVEMBER 15, 1802
Letter II
S
ir,—Encouraged by the ready insertion you gave my former communication, I have taken the liberty to intrude on you a few more remarks.
Nothing is more intolerable to an old person than innovation on old habits. The customs that prevailed in our youth become dear to us as we advance in years; and we can no more bear to see them abolished than we can to behold the trees cut down under which we have sported in the happy days of infancy.
Even I myself, who have floated down the stream of life with the tide,—who have humored it in all its turnings, who have conformed in a great measure to all its fashions,—cannot but feel sensible of this prejudice. I often sigh when I draw a comparison between the present and the past; and though I cannot but be sensible that, in general, times are altered for the better, yet there is something, even in the imperfections of the manners which prevailed in my youthful days, that is inexpressibly endearing.
There is nothing that seems more strange and preposterous to me than the manner in which modern marriages are conducted.
2
The parties keep the matter as secret as if there was something disgraceful in the connection. The lady positively denies that anything of the kind is to happen; will laugh at her intended husband, and even lay bets against the event, the very day before it is to take place. They sneak into matrimony as quietly as possible, and seem to pride themselves on the cunning and ingenuity they have displayed in their manoeuvres.
How different is this from the manners of former times! I recollect when my aunt Barbara was addressed by ‘Squire Stylish; nothing was heard of during the whole courtship but consultations and negotiations between her friends and relatives; the matter was considered and reconsidered, and at length the time set for a final answer. Never, Mr. Editor, shall I forget the awful solemnity of the scene. The whole family of the Oldstyles assembled in awful conclave: my aunt Barbara dressed out as fine as hands could make her,—high cushion, enormous cap, long waist, prodigious hoop, ruffles that reached to the end of her fingers, and a gown of flame-colored brocade, figured with poppies, roses, and sunflowers. Never did she look so sublimely handsome. The ’Squire entered the room with a countenance suited to the solemnity of the occasion. He was arrayed in a full suit of scarlet velvet, his coat decorated with a profusion of large silk buttons, and the skirts stiffened with a yard or two of buckram; a long pig-tailed wig, well powdered, adorned his head; and stockings of deep blue silk, rolled over the knees, graced his extremities; the flaps of his vest reached to his knee-buckles, and the ends of his cravat, tied with the most precise neatness, twisted through every button-hole. Thus accoutred, he gravely walked into the room, with his ivory-headed ebony cane in one hand, and gently swaying his three-cornered beaver with the other. The gallant and fashionable appearance of the ’Squire, the gracefulness and dignity of his deportment, occasioned a general smile of complacency through the room; my aunt Barbara modestly veiled her countenance with her fan, but I observed her contemplating her admirer with great satisfaction through the sticks.
The business was opened with the most formal solemnity, but was not long in agitation. The Oldstyles were moderate; their articles of capitulation few; the ’Squire was gallant, and acceded to them all. In short, the blushing Barbara was delivered up to his embraces with due ceremony. Then, Mr. Editor, then were the happy times: such oceans of arrack,
g
—such mountains of plumcake,—such feasting and congratulating,—such fiddling and dancing,—ah me! who can think of those days, and not sigh when he sees the degeneracy of the present: no eating of cake nor throwing of stockings,—not a single skin filled with wine on the joyful occasion,—nor a single pocket edified by it but the parson’s.
It is with the greatest pain I see those customs dying away, which served to awaken the hospitality and friendship of my ancient comrades, —that strewed with flowers the path to the altar, and shed a ray of sunshine on the commencement of the matrimonial union.