Timeless Classics: Rip Van Winkle

*Illustrated
*Includes a table of contents

In the early 19th century, American author Washington Irving began a literary career that would make him the first American Romantic author to become popular overseas and inspire several American authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe. In addition to Romantic themes, Irving added humor to his short stories. For example, in his famous “Rip Van Winkle,” Rip Van Winkle escapes from a nagging wife and falls asleep for 20 years in the Catskill Mountains before coming home. Upon hearing the story, Rip’s male neighbors are envious of the manner in which he could avoid a nagging wife for so long.

Published in 1819, “Rip Van Winkle” was joined in Irving’s book of short stories by “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” a fictional short story rife with mystery and supernatural phenomena that involves a headless horseman chasing Ichabod Crane out of the town of Sleepy Hollow. The surreal, eerie nature of this short story is a clear forerunner to some of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous work.

This edition of Rip Van Winkle includes a table of contents and is illustrated.