Irving, Washington ___ 1783-1859 ___ American ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Irving was born in New York to Scottish-English immigrants who were such admirers of George Washington that they named their last son (of 11 children) after him. He studied law privately, but did not practice for long. After travelling in Europe in 1804-1806, he also represented his family's hardware business in England until 1818. He served as a military aide to a New York governor in 1812, and was a magazine editor. However, he came early to writing, and it is for his short stories, biographies and journals that he is best remembered. His comic history of New York, by the imaginary Dietrich Knickerbocker, was published in 1809, and 'The Sketchbook' in 1819, under the pen name, Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The latter contained stories that were to become famous: 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and 'Rip Van Winkle'. By the late 1820s, Irving had gained a reputation throughout Europe and the US as a great writer and thinker. After spending much of his life in Europe, he returned to New York in 1832, and established a home at Sunnyside in Tarrytown, a place which many famous people visited over the years. He remained there for the rest of his life, apart from four years (1842-1846) when he acted as minister to Spain. Later in his life, Irving nurtured young American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allen Poe.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Echoes in the Ear

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1803-1842 ___ literary political people society travel Germany UK Spain Italy Switzerland

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
etext
etext

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
New York Public Library - possibly

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Journals of Washington Irving
Mr. Irving's Notes and Journals of Travel in Europe, 1804-1805
The Western Journals of Washington Irving
 

October 2005, July 2008, April 2013
Please email if you have any corrections, additions or comments, or if you've found the site useful. Thank you.

IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.