The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
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. It was published serially throughout 1819 and 1820. 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". It also marks Irving's first use of the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, which he would continue to employ throughout his literary career.
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 helped advance the reputation of American writers with an international audience.
Overview
Apart 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". Irving's stories were highly influenced by German folktales, with "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" being inspired by a folktale retold by J. K. A. Musäus.Stories range from the maudlin to the picaresque and the comical, 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. 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.
Little more than five of the 33 chapters deal with American subjects: the essays "English Writers on America", "The Traits of Indian Character", "Philip of Pokanoket: An Indian Memoir", and parts of "The Author's Account of Himself" and "The Angler"; and Knickerbocker's short stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". Most of the remainder of the book consists of vignettes of English life and landscape, written with the author's characteristic charm while he lived in England. Irving wrote in a preface for a later edition:
Background
Irving began writing the tales that would appear in The Sketch Book shortly after moving to England for the family business, in 1815. When the family business spiraled into bankruptcy throughout 1816 and 1817 a humiliation that Irving never forgot Irving was left with no job and few prospects. He tried at first to serve as an intermediary between American and English publishers, scouting for English books to reprint in America and vice versa, with only marginal success. In the autumn of 1818, his oldest brother William, sitting as a Congressman from New York, secured for him a political appointment as chief clerk to the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, and urged Irving to return home. Irving demurred, however, choosing to remain in England and take his chances as a writer. As he told friends and family back in the United States:Irving spent late 1818 and the early part of 1819 putting the final touches on the short stories and essays that he would eventually publish as The Sketch Book through 1819 and 1820.
Contents
The Sketch Book initially existed in two versions: a seven-part serialized American version in paperback and a two-volume British version in hardback. The British edition contained three essays that were not included in the original American serialized format. Two more essays, "A Sunday in London" and "London Antiques", were added by Irving in 1848 for inclusion in the Author's Revised Edition of The Sketch Book for publisher George Putnam. At that time, Irving reordered the essays. Consequently, modern editions based on Irving's own changes for the Author's Revised Edition do not reflect the order in which the sketches originally appeared.Modern editions of The Sketch Book contain all 34 stories, in the order directed by Irving in his Author's Revised Edition, as follows:
Title | Original Date of Publication | Summary | |
| "The Author's Account of Himself" | June 23, 1819 | First American Installment | Irving introduces his pseudonymous narrator, Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. |
| "The Voyage" | June 23, 1819 | First American Installment | Crayon details his ocean voyage from the United States to England. He details the dangers of traveling across the Atlantic to Europe, telling tales of ships lost at sea. |
| "Roscoe" | June 23, 1819 | First American Installment | Irving's tribute to the English writer and historian William Roscoe, whom Irving had met in Liverpool. |
| "The Wife" | June 23, 1819 | First American Installment | A sentimental piece in which the new wife of an impoverished gentleman teaches her husband that money can't buy happiness. |
| "Rip Van Winkle" | June 23, 1819 | First American Installment | The tale of a henpecked husband who sleeps away twenty years in the Catskills a story allegedly found among the papers of Irving's fictional historian Diedrich Knickerbocker. It is explained that Rip Van Winkle had been put under a spell after helping the spectre of Hendrick Hudson and his crew. |
| "English Writers on America" | July 31, 1819 | Second American Installment | Crayon calls for a ceasefire of "the literary animosity daily growing between England and America". |
| "Rural Life in England" | July 31, 1819 | Second American Installment | Crayon fondly describes English character and countrysides. |
| "The Broken Heart" | July 31, 1819 | Second American Installment | Crayon relates the story of a young Irish woman who wasted away "in a slow but hopeless decline" following the death of her true love. |
| "The Art of Bookmaking" | July 31, 1819 | Second American Installment | A humorous piece in which literature is created as easily as a cook might make a stew. He specifically discusses how authors go to libraries to research previously written works—sometimes centuries old—and, partially or completely re-use the concepts discussed in these older works. |
| "A Royal Poet" | September 13, 1819 | Third American Installment | A romanticized description of the literary King James I of Scotland and his writing a poem for his beloved, Lady Jane Beaufort. |
| "The Country Church" | September 13, 1819 | Third American Installment | Crayon contrasts the quiet integrity of the nobleman with the offensive flashiness of the nouveau riche. |
| "The Widow and Her Son" | September 13, 1819 | Third American Installment | An old Englishwoman tends to her dying son after he returns from his conscription at sea. |
| "A Sunday in London" | 1848 | Author's Revised Edition | Crayon describes a day in London before, during, and after Sunday church services. |
| "The Boar's Head Tavern, East Cheap" | September 13, 1819 | Third American Installment | A detective story of sorts, in which Crayon attempts to locate the real-life tavern of Shakespeare's Falstaff, the Boar's Head Inn, Eastcheap. |
| "The Mutability of Literature" | November 10, 1819 | Fourth American Installment | Crayon discusses evolving literary tastes with a talking book he finds in the library of Westminster Abbey. |
| "Rural Funerals" | November 10, 1819 | Fourth American Installment | Crayon discusses English funeral traditions. |
| "The Inn Kitchen" | November 10, 1819 | Fourth American Installment | A description of the kind of hospitality visitors to the Netherlands can expect. One of the visitors staying in the same Inn as Geoffrey Crayon relays the subsequent tale, "The Spectre Bridegroom". |
| "The Spectre Bridegroom" | November 10, 1819 | Fourth American Installment | A ghost story involving a betrothal, an armed robbery and a murder, as well as a happy ending. |
| "Westminster Abbey" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | A contemplative tour of Westminster Abbey. |
| "Christmas" | January 1, 1820 | Fifth American Installment | Crayon reflects on the meaning of Christmas and its celebration. |
| "The Stage-Coach" | January 1, 1820 | Fifth American Installment | Crayon rides with the Bracebridge children to their country manor, Bracebridge Hall, and is invited to stay for Christmas. |
| "Christmas Eve" | January 1, 1820 | Fifth American Installment | Crayon celebrates the holiday at the home of Squire Bracebridge. |
| "Christmas Day" | January 1, 1820 | Fifth American Installment | Christmas festivities allegedly in the old tradition continue at Bracebridge Hall. |
| "Christmas Dinner" | January 1, 1820 | Fifth American Installment | Crayon enjoys old English hospitality at the Bracebridge Christmas dinner table. |
| "London Antiques" | 1848 | Author's Revised Edition | Prowling London for antiques, Crayon instead stumbles upon the Charter House, home of "superannuated tradesmen and decayed householders"; one of whom gives him a history of "Little Britain" to read. |
| "Little Britain" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | Crayon transcribes the history provided to him by the superannuated tradesman, which describes the heart of old London. |
| "Stratford-on-Avon" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | A tribute to the life and work of William Shakespeare. |
| "Traits of Indian Character" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | A sympathetic portrait of Native Americans, detailing how the White Man took advantage of and outright butchered Native Americans to obtain land. |
| "Philip of Pokanoket" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | A heroic portrait of the Indian leader. |
| "John Bull" | March 15, 1820 | Sixth American Installment | A tip of the hat to English character and custom. |
| "The Pride of the Village" | March 15, 1820 | Sixth American Installment | A sentimental piece about true love lost, then found again, too late to save the life of a heartbroken young maiden. |
| "The Angler" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | A character sketch of the English naturalist Izaak Walton. |
| "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" | March 15, 1820 | Sixth American Installment | Irving's tale of small-town school teacher Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, again attributed to the fictional historian Diedrich Knickerbocker. This ghost story involves the desire for social advancement through marriage, jealousy, and a prank to scare away the competition. |
| "L'Envoy" | July 1820 | English Edition, Volume 2 | Crayon thanks his readers for their indulgence. |