The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

• Genre: Fiction; short story
• Originally Published: 1820
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: Approx. 32 pages; approx. 1 hours, 15 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Diedrich Knickerbocker narrates the ill-fated story of Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher who moves to Sleepy Hollow 30 years before the story begins. When Ichabod falls in love with Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of the town’s wealthiest farmer, he draws the ire of Brom Bones and the Headless Horseman.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: References to racism/slavery

Washington Irving, Author

• Bio: 1783-1859; American writer, biographer, historian, and diplomat best known for the short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; last of eleven children; preferred adventure stories and drama to other subjects; often snuck out of class to attend the theater; began writing for the Morning Chronicle in 1802 under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle; started a hoax leading up to the publication of his first book A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, By Diedrich Knickerbocker, wherein he placed a series of missing person advertisements in New York newspapers seeking the whereabouts of fictional historian (of his own invention) Diedrich Knickerbocker; editor of Analectic Magazine; opposed the War of 1812 but enlisted after the British attack on Washington, DC in 1814, serving on the staff of Daniel Tompkins, governor of New York; left for England in 1815 to salvage the family trading company; spent the next 17 years abroad; appointed as President John Tyler’s Minister to Spain in 1842; popularized the nickname “Gotham” for New York City; thought to have invented the phrase “the almighty dollar”; 1812 revisions to A History of New York directly contributed to the way Americans celebrate Christmas; reputation for publishing in the vernacular and writing purely for entertainment solidified legacy as the first American Man of letters
• Other Works: A History of New York (1809); The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.