With these words, Washington Irving expresses the dilemma ofevery American artist in the nineteenth century. The Sketch-Book(1820-1) looks simultaneously towards audiences on both sides ofthe Atlantic, as Irving explores the uneasy relationship of anAmerican writer to English literary traditions. He sketches aseries of encounters with the cultural shrines of the parentnation, and in two brilliant experiments with tales transplantedfrom Europe creates the first classic American short stories, 'RipVan Winkle' and 'The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow'. The result wasnot only a hugely successful travel book; it exerted a strongformative influence on American writers from Nathaniel Hawthorneand Edgar Allan Poe to Henry James, and is well worth rediscoveryin its own right today. Based on Irving's final revision of hismost popular work, this new edition includes comprehensiveexplanatory notes of The Sketch-Book's sources for the modernreader. In her introduction, Susan Manning suggests that the authorforged a new idiom, the 'Literary Picturesque', to accommodate andturn to advantage his dilemma of dual literary allegiances.--This text refers to the Paperbackedition.
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