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Washington Irving Washington Irving(1783-1859) American author, short story writer, essayist, poet, travel book writer, biographer, and columnist. He was one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, and regarded as an early Romantic writer in the American literary history and Father of the American short stories. Washington Irving As a writer, Washington Irving was so naturally endowed that he seemed to drift into his career at the whim of circumstances and his own inclinations. He was born in New York City, the youngest of eleven children of a wealthy merchant. From a very early age he began to read widely and write poems, essays, and plays. Washington Irving Irving’s hope, plan and dreams come to a crashing halt after the loss of his only love, yet he found his refuge from the grief in the researches on A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which was a great success and won him wide popularity after it came out in 1809. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. The book contains familiar essays on the English life and Americanized versions of European folk tales like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. Washington Irving Irving’s relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home. He parodies or imitates Homer, Cervantes, Fielding, Swift and many other favorites of his. He was also absorbed in what he called “the rich mine of German literature” and got ideas from German legends for two of his famous stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. However, it is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring. Washington Irving Irving’s taste was essentially conservative. This social conservatio