American Literature of the 19th Century
I suppose my love of literature in general began specifically with the American literature of the Nineteenth Century. Elementary school encounters with Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe gave a sense of a whole story, a wide and vivid painting of a setting and characters and events. Short stories were taught throughout public school, and the short story was mastered by American writers in the Nineteenth Century. so the best was offered in the big reader anthologies of fifty years ago. I acquired a complete set of Nathaniel Hawthorne and read every volume, including the notebooks. Later I delighted in discovering the “off-canon” writers, particularly Bret Harte and Harriet Beecher Stowe. This page of my usual offerings in the store is not comprehensive, but I am working toward that. I hope it inspires returns to favorites, new discoveries, and rounding out earlier reading.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
The timeless collection that introduced Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and the Headless Horseman
Perhaps the marker of a true mythos is when the stories themselves overshadow their creator. Originally published under a pseudonym as The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories gave America its own haunted mythology. This collection of larger-than-life tales contains Washington Irving’s best-known literary inventions—Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman, and Rip Van Winkle—that continue to capture our imaginations today.