Born in New York City, Washinton Irving was one of the first Americans to be recognized abroad as a man of letters, and he was a literary idol at home.

While he studied law, Irving amused himself by writing essays on New York society and the theatre. From 1804 to 1806 his older brothers financed his tour of France and Italy and on his return he published a series of humorous and satirical essays. Under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, he published A History of New York (1809), a satire that has been called the first great book of comic literature written by an American.

Irving went to England in 1815 to run the Liverpool branch of the family hardware business, but could not save it when the whole firm failed. With the encouragement of Walter Scott, Irving turned definitely to literature. The stories (including “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), appeared serially in New York in 1819–20; their enthusiastic reception made Irving the best-known figure in American literature both at home and abroad. Bracebridge Hall (1822), the next volume of essays, although inferior to the previous book, was well received. However, his Tales of a Traveller (1824), written after visits to Germany and France, was a failure.

Irving became a diplomatic attaché at the American embassy in Madrid in 1826. There he produced his biography of Columbus (1828), largely based on the work of the Spanish historian Navarrete; The Conquest of Granada (1829), a romantic narrative; and the Spanish sketches of The Alhambra (1832). After a short period at the American legation in London, he returned to New York. He made a journey to the frontier and wrote about the American West in A Tour of the Prairies (1835). From records furnished by John Jacob Astor, he wrote Astoria (1836), and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A. (1837).

Irving subsequently established himself at his estate, Sunnyside, near Tarrytown, N.Y., until he was sent to Madrid as American minister to Spain (1842–46). Once more at Sunnyside, he wrote a biography of Goldsmith (1849) and the miscellaneous sketches called Wolfert’s Roost (1855) and completed his biography of George Washington (1855–59) just before his death.

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