Washington Irving biography

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Washington Irving Biography

IRVING, Washington (1783–1859). An American author. He was born in New York City, April 3, 1783. His mother was English, and his father had come from Scotland to New York City, where he engaged in trade. Irving studied in the schools of New York and at the age of 16 took up law. Before he was 20 he contributed, under the pseudonym of "Jonathan Oldstyle," to the New York Morning Chronicle, of which his brother was editor. Never in these early years in good health, he was obliged in 1804 to go to Europe, where he remained two years. Shortly after his return he published, in 1807, with his brother William and James K. Paulding (q.v.), Salmagundi, an undertaking in the style of Addison’s Spectator. In 1809 appeared A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker—a humorous, whimsical, and genially satirical sketch, which brought him reputation and money. This book had been begun with the intention of burlesquing a pretentious guidebook by Dr. Samuel Mitchell. The Knickerbocker History, to give it its most common name, grew as Irving’s humor found more and more curiosities in the quaint and phlegmatic Dutch type, which is so strongly contrasted with the quick and more volatile descendant of British stock. He then gave up any idea of law and became a sleeping partner of his brothers, whose business house was in Liverpool, occupying himself meanwhile with literary work. Irving’s reputation had preceded him to England, where his gracious manners made him a favorite in society. He met Campbell and Thomas Moore and was heartily liked by Walter Scott, who persuaded Murray to publish The Sketch-Book. Among other things he edited The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell. During the War of 1812 he was on the staff of Governor Tompkins, of New York, and was connected with the Analectic Magazine of Philadelphia. In 1815 he went to Europe to look out for the business interests of the firm, the failure of which in 1818 turned him for good and all to literature.

In New York and in London (1819–20) Irving published the book by which he is most popularly known, The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. It was heartily welcomed on both sides of the Atlantic, and two of the stories especially, Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, have become classics in American literature. The Sketch-Book soon went through many editions, was illustrated by Caldicott and commentated by Pfundheller for the Germans. The vein of the book is one of humor, tenderness, geniality, and good-fellowship; the manner is reminiscent of Goldsmith and other English authors of the eighteenth century, to whom Irving was temperamentally drawn. The spirit that animated Irving in all of his writing, save that which was distinctly historical, is admirably expressed by his own apologia in the Sketch-Book: "It is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct—to play the companion rather than the preceptor. What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into the mass of knowledge; or how am I sure that my sagest deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is in my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain." In 1822 appeared another volume in much the manner of the Sketch-Book, Bracebridge Hall, or the Humorists, a series of sketches, translated into German by Spiker (1826). In 1822 Irving visited the Rhine, lived for a while in Paris, and again in England in 1824. In 1824 appeared the Tales of a Traveller, a collection of short stories, with the same general good feeling, but with more action. In 1826 he went to Spain, remaining there until 1829, and, as a result of his stay, produced four books quite different from his former work: History of the Life and Times of Christopher Columbus (1828); A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829), an interesting narrative, but of no real historical value; Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (1831); and The Alhambra (1832), a series of sketches and stories associated with the author’s life in the romantic ruins of Granada. Irving’s book on Columbus was written with the help of Spanish archives, after Irving had given up his original purpose to translate Navarrete’s recently published work on the discoverer. The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada purports to be founded on the manuscripts of Fray Antonio Agapida, an imaginary chronicler. The Alhambra was written mainly in London, where Irving was Secretary of the United States Legation from 1829 to 1831. He returned to America in 1832, where he was welcomed with almost national honor; for the people of the United States knew that he had won recognition abroad for American literature.

In 1841 Irving was appointed United States Minister at Madrid, where he lived from 1843 to 1846, continuing his historical writing with the work on Mahomet. He passed the rest of his life, with the exception of some months of travel in the West, at Sunnyside, his country seat near Tarrytown, N. Y. From the appearance of The Alhambra up to 1849 his literary work was inferior to what he had previously done and is of no great charm or value. It consists of The Crayon Miscellany (1835); Astoria (1836); and The Rocky Mountains: or, Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West (1837). The work which came towards the end of his life, however, added to his reputation. It was chiefly biographical and historical: Oliver Goldsmith (1849); Mahomet and his Successors (1849–50); Wolfert’s Roost (1855); and his long-planned and affectionate Life of Washington (1855–59), which he completed only with the year of his death. He died at Sunnyside, November 28, 1859. Post-humously there appeared The Life and Letters of Washington Irving (1862–64) and Spanish Papers and Other Miscellanies (1866), edited by his nephew, P. M. Irving. His Works, in 27 volumes, appeared in New York in 1884–86. Selections from them in English and in German, with illustrations by Ritter and Camphausen, were published in Leipzig in 1856. The standard Irving is now the 40-volume Knickerbocker Edition (New York, n. d.), which is based upon the edition revised by the author and published in the middle of the last century.

Irving is significant in the history of American letters as the first American, after the independence of the United States, to obtain real literary recognition in England. His own whimsical but keen explanation of his foreign reception is as follows: "It has been a matter of marvel, to my European readers, that a man from the wilds of America should express himself in tolerable English. I was looked upon as something new and strange in literature; a kind of demi-savage, with a feather in his hand instead of on his head; and there was a curiosity to hear what such a being had to say about civilized society." By another than the modest author, however, his success may well be attributed to the geniality of his nature, his social gifts, and his literary feeling. He was able to please an audience schooled in the manner of Addison, Johnson, and Goldsmith, and at the same time to cause no offense to the patriotic sensibilities of his countrymen. Much of his work deals directly with English life and customs and is written in the manner of a kindly, well-bred Englishman. The influence of Irving upon American letters was hence, in the main, good; it enabled writers to make use of the best English tradition and helped to rid them of the provincialism which had characterized their work up to his coming. He is perhaps best as an essayist, and he will be permanent for his charm and refinement; yet it must not be forgotten that he was practically the discoverer, for Americans at least, of the effectiveness of the short story as a form of art. Nor is Irving’s place in English literature unimportant, for he was a link between Goldsmith and Dickens. Indeed, Irving seems rather like an English than like an American author; for, though there is a quaintness in his humor and freshness in his views, he is devoted to English traditions as to form. With Whitman, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain one encounters a more obviously American school.

The New International Encyclopaedia Vol. XII. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 405-406.