Washington Irving

Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving

A nice edition commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the release of these stories--illustrated with 70 black and white illustrations by N. C. Wyeth and Arthur Rackham

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution. Irving wrote it while living in Birmingham, England, as part of the collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. This collection also contained "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". This tale is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.