Erudite, charming, and never one to make himself more interesting than his tales, Crayon holds The Sketch Book together through the sheer power of his personality – and Irving would, for the rest of his life, seamlessly enmesh Crayon's persona with his own public reputation. Stories range from the maudlin (such as "The Wife" and "The Widow and Her Son") to the picaresque ("Little Britain") and the comical ("The Mutability of Literature"), but the common thread running through The Sketch Book – and a key part of its attraction to readers – is the personality of Irving's pseudonymous narrator, Geoffrey Crayon.
Irving's stories were highly influenced by German folktales, with "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" being inspired by a folktale retold by J. It also helped advance the reputation of American writers with an international audience.Īpart from " Rip Van Winkle" and " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" – the pieces which made both Irving and The Sketch Book famous – the collection of tales includes "Roscoe", "The Broken Heart", "The Art of Book-making", "A Royal Poet", "The Spectre Bridegroom", "Westminster Abbey", "Little Britain", and "John Bull". The Sketch Book, along with James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, was among the first widely read works of American literature in Britain and Europe. It also marks Irving's first use of the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, which he would continue to employ throughout his literary career. The collection includes two of Irving's best-known stories, attributed to the fictional Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker: " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and " Rip Van Winkle".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., commonly referred to as The Sketch Book, is a collection of 34 essays and short stories written by the American author Washington Irving.
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