By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Memorably filmed by Tim Burton in a 1999 adaptation that changed a number of details of Irving’s original story, ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is, along with ‘Rip Van Winkle’ (which we have analysed here), Irving’s best-known work. First published in 1820, the story is variously regarded as a Gothic tale and a modern folk story about the early history of the United States of America.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Washington Irving (1783-1859) is often known as ‘the father of American literature’. Named in honour of the (future) first US President, Irving has had a huge influence on American writers for two centuries, and has also been responsible (indirectly) for the name of the knickerbocker glory dessert and, even, the word ‘knickers’ (both words come from Irving’s fictional creator, Diedrich Knickerbocker).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
First published in 1819, ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is one of the most famous pieces of writing by Washington Irving, whose contribution to American literature was considerable. ‘Rip Van Winkle’ has become a byword for the idea of falling asleep and waking up to find the familiar world around us has changed.
In this guest post, Dr Peter Templeton offers some fascinating facts about a largely forgotten American author, John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870).
It isn’t out of the ordinary for an author who is popular in their own day to fall from grace in later years. Sometimes this is accelerated or amplified because progress leaves certain views – and, indeed, authors – looking decidedly out of step with what is now accepted, as was the case with a lot of antebellum Southern writing. Of these, one of the most well-connected and fundamentally interesting writers of his day was the author, lawyer and statesman John Pendleton Kennedy. Here a few choice facts about his life and work:
The last few ‘windows’ of this literary advent calendar have been shedding light on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and Dickens’s role in helping to popularise the idea of the modern Christmas. But there is another writer who probably did more for Christmas than even Dickens did. Although we often talk about Dickens (1812-70) as the one … Read more