Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete - Irving, Washington
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In every reader's life there are a few books which seem to come out of nowhere at just the right moment to surprise and delight and affirm your hope that there are still treasures lurking in the double-stacked shelves. This was that sort of book for me. Published in 1809, the young Irving's book is a satirical novel/history of the Dutch New Netherlands, ostensibly written by a crotchety old fellow named Diedrich Knickerbocker - and printed by his former landlord after the author mysteriously disappeared while still owing a considerable amount of rent. Irving himself engaged in a sort of viral…mehr

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In every reader's life there are a few books which seem to come out of nowhere at just the right moment to surprise and delight and affirm your hope that there are still treasures lurking in the double-stacked shelves. This was that sort of book for me. Published in 1809, the young Irving's book is a satirical novel/history of the Dutch New Netherlands, ostensibly written by a crotchety old fellow named Diedrich Knickerbocker - and printed by his former landlord after the author mysteriously disappeared while still owing a considerable amount of rent. Irving himself engaged in a sort of viral marketing campaign for A History of New York, writing missing person notices for Knickerbocker in several New York papers prior to publication. Knickerbocker's "history" of New York begins with the creation of the world, of course. It moves on to the origin of species and the peopling of Earth, then jumps right into the "discovery" of the New World by Europeans (especially Henry Hudson). There's a fantastic, biting chapter on the ethics of colonization and relations with the Indians. The bulk of the history, however, has to do with the gloriously comical reigns of the three Dutch governors of The New Netherlands. There's a lot of inside-baseball for people familiar with the politics of New York in Irving's own day, but unfamiliarity in no way detracts from enjoyment of the book. A History of New York is hilarious, and terrifically entertaining. There's nothing quite like it in early American literature. Looking for comparisons, I can only turn to Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy, and maybe Rabelais. Supposedly Byron and Dickens, among others, were huge fans of this book. I read that Dickens carried a copy with him for years. A History of New York ought be more widely read and appreciated than it is today. It's a real classic of American literature and belongs up on the top shelf with the likes of Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn, etc. (Graychin) About the Author Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 - November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as the Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s. Irving was born and raised in Manhattan to a merchant family. He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. He temporarily moved to England for the family business in 1815, where he achieved fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. which was serialized from 1819 to 1820. He continued to publish regularly throughout his life, and he completed a five-volume biography of George Washington just eight months before his death at age 76 in Tarrytown, New York. Irving was one of the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and he encouraged other American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe. He was also admired by some British writers, including Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, Francis Jeffrey, and Walter Scott. He advocated for writing as a legitimate profession and argued for stronger laws to protect American writers from copyright infringement. (wikipedia.org)
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