life and works

Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783, in New York City. He is actually named after George Washington and attended the first presidential inauguration of his namesake in 1789. Unlike most writers of his era, he did not attend college. He was educated privately and studied law. By his own account, he was not a good student and barely passed the bar to be a lawyer. He experienced his first brush with writing when he and his brother wrote the Salamagundi papers, which was a collection of humorous essays. Early on, he commonly wrote under the surname, Diedrich Knickerbocker.

                He traveled to England in 1815 to help run his brother’s business, but that eventually went south. He then wrote a collection of short stories called The Sketch Book, which were published under the name “Geoffrey Crayon” and included his most popular writings, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  While in England, he became secretary of the U.S. legation in London from 1829-1832. He also became a U.S. ambassador in Spain, but he spent most of his time in his estate, “Sunnyside”,  near Tarrytown, New York. While there, he composed a five-volume biography of George Washington.

                His stories have become some of the most popular children’s stories of all time. In 1999, director Tim Burton transformed “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” into a film that starred Johnny Depp. It was titled simply, Sleepy Hollow. The story is about a police officer, Ichabod Crane, who is from New York and has been called to investigate a series of gruesome murders committed by the “Headless Horseman.” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” has also been converted into a children’s cartoon numerous times, as well as “Rip Van Winkle.”

                Below is a link to the trailer from the movie Sleepy Hollow. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6O4Himch7g&noredirect=1

Bradley Raulston