The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving [Hardcover]

Andrew Burstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2007

Washington Irving-author, ambassador, and Manhattanite-has largely slipped from America’s memory, and yet, his creations are well known. Acclaimed historian Andrew Burstein returns Irving to the context of his native nineteenth century where he was an international celebrity-both a comic genius and the first American to earn his living as an author. Irving traveled through Europe and America, excavating tales and writing popular social satire, beloved children’s stories, gothic drama, and picturesque history. He gave his young nation such enduring tales as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. His 1809 burlesque, A History of New York, popularized the figure of jolly old St. Nicholas, and gave birth to the modern American Christmas. Irving was the original “Knickerbocker”; he also coined “Gotham” as the name for New York. By showing Irving as a leading architect of the American personality Burstein has managed to reinvigorate the legacy of one our nation’s most outsized literary talents as well as to help us better understand the country we live in.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

University of Tulsa's Burstein, best known for his studies of Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson's Secrets), offers a serviceable biography of another early American celebrity: Washington Irving, whom Burstein credits with creating a national literature and with helping persuade Europeans that America wasn't full of simpletons and savages. Burstein speculates about Irving's inner life: was he gay? Possibly, but Burstein thinks it more likely the writer was simply a bachelor, a respectable role in his time and place. Burstein also helpfully recreates early 19th-century New York, a port city with a population in the tens of thousands. He offers judicious literary analysis, teasing out the roles history and memory play in Irving's work. But Burstein's most significant contribution comes in situating Irving's literary work in its larger social and political context. For example, he argues that Irving's satirical and immensely popular A History of New York (1809)—better known as Knickerbocker's History—established the city as a place with a literary future, and he reads Rip Van Winkle as a symbol of early 19th-century America's energetic, pioneering, adolescent charm. Overall, this is an insightful if not inspiring addition to the cultural history of pre–Civil War America. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Washington Irving, author of "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," was the first American author to win European acceptance and likely the first American author to be able to make a living at writing. Despite such success, Irving has found his prominence in the American literary canon increasingly eclipsed by other nineteenth-century writers--Edgar Allan Poe, for example--whose prose is less dependent upon nuanced awareness of that period's political climate. With this book, historian Burstein makes a compelling case for Irving's continued relevance, not as a literary light but as a catalytic figure in American cultural history. A Manhattanite as New York became a city, and a talented writer of whimsical satire at the blossoming of the worldwide literary marketplace, Irving was at the right place at the right time. But, Burstein argues, Irving's uncommon character--well read and well traveled, immersed in politics yet unmotivated to conform to a life of mercantile or domestic drudgery--would make him uniquely able to define the American national consciousness with his literature. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 440 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1St Edition edition (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465008534
• ISBN-13: 978-0465008537
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A dull depiction of a fascinating man., April 20, 2007

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Reviewer - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving (Hardcover)

I have read one other biography of Irving, most of Irving's work and have two books of his personal notes and journals, so this is not a subject I am unfamiliar with.

First of all it's nice to see someone trying to resurrect this now forgotten but important figure of American Literature. If Americans know him at all, its through cartoons of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving is much more - a great wit and merry soul with, as the author points out, a unique combination of romanticism and healthy realism/skepticism.
While I can't find fault with the author's prose, I did not find it inspiring or lively - something I would expect, no, require from anyone writing about Irving. He seems to 'not get' the charm Irving's character - and here's one example:

He tells the famous story of Irving's Scottish maid introducing George Washington to his six year old namesake, Irving. However, he doesn't add in the famous quip by Irving -that his bald spot was the result of the President laying his divine hand on his head (or something like that). Its little details like that that make the story interesting - and a perfect opportunity to illustrate Irving's character.

Nowhere did he go into Irving's influence on other authors: Irving, I understand, is purported to have suggested the "Rebbecca" character in Ivanhoe to Sir Walter Scott, based on an actual Jewish woman he knew or had heard of in Philadelphia. Also, Dicken's admiration of Irving and the fact that Irving's brother was named Ebeneezer should provide a 'connect the dots' for somebody on the ball. [...].

Another glaring omission: Irving's contemplation of pursuing a career as an artist - and the sketches that often accompany his journals.

The Burstein's sometime PC/modern sensibilities were annoying but mercifully few and far between. But he either has a bias or simply didn't do the research into Irving's religious background. While not 'fanatic' or even overtly spiritual - he did convert to Episcopaliansim in secret at trinity church when still a teenager, and later in life served as a vestryman at the Episcopal church in Tarrytown where his personal affects are still on display - how could someone writing a book on Irving not know this? one gets the sense that Burstein never even visited Tarrytown/Sunnyside though I am sure he did. Burnstein doesn't hesitate to go into Irving's condemnation of religious fanaticism and dislike of his father's stern Presbyterianism, so I can only guess that he as an active bias, or he's very sloppy.

I also thought the sections on his stay at the Alhambra and Spain was too short and lacking any vitality. I have stood in the chambers at the Alhambra that Irving was purported to stay in, walked the grounds that so enchanted him and have to say, after doing that, reading Irving's book Tales of the Alhambra, I wonder if Burstien and I are talking about the same place and writer. It's a crime to be mundane about either!

Still overall, I would say the book is worth reading because it's the only contemporary source of consolidated information on Irving (I believe that the last biography was over 40 years ago) however, Burstein does not provide enough of an argument, or 'tools' to justify a long overdue Irving revival. At the end of the day, despite digging his nose into Irving's works and life for some time, Burstein just 'doesn't get it'.
(ps, I would rate two stars, but you can't adjust after submitting)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A man who lived during historic times, April 18, 2008

By 

R. DelParto "Rose2" (Virginia Beach, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving (Paperback)

This is a unique book that blends literary analysis, history, and biography of the life of one of American literature's legendary authors, Washington Irving. Andrew Burstein examines a bulk of Irving's most renowned works, the picaresque The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, A History of New York, and Life and Voyages of Columbus as well as several other short stories that have graced the pages of literature anthologies. But Irving was also a man of many facets as the subtitle of the book reveals, a diplomat, historian, and writer who hobnobbed with creative imagination as it related to the colonial and revolutionary historical past.

The only disconcerting aspect of the book is how Burstein excessively delves into the crevices of Irving's works within the first two sections. And as a result, one may almost forget what the book is about or wonder if the book is supposed to be about Irving or more about the synopsis of his stories; the passages may be helpful for readers not familiar with his works. However, interesting questions arise pertaining to Irving's own personal life outside his writings, such as his religious conversion and beliefs, the issue of slavery in Britain and America, the mysticism surrounding Matilda Hoffman and his sexuality, why did he live a transatlantic life, his romance with Spain, and his use of pseudonyms, Geoffrey, Crayon, Diedrich Knickerbocker and Jonathan Oldstyle, that are in need of further explanation.

Nonetheless, the insightful part about the book is when Burstein discusses the man who used pseudonyms during the early part of his writing career but later shed the anonymity with the publication of his biography about Christopher Columbus. And most importantly, Irving was one of the most animated travel writers who trekked west with Henry Ellsworth, son of Federalist delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Oliver Ellsworth, during one of the most historic events in American history that involved Indian territory west of the Mississippi River, which involved Indian Removal, Ellsworth-Irving Expedition. Irving vividly described and witnessed the changing American landscape within his stories that compared and paralleled the history of Indian America and White America, which Burstein discusses in the chapter, "A Tour on the Prairies." It was amazing to read of the various people Irving encountered and befriended during his lifetime, such as Sac Tribe Chief, Black Hawk, Andrew Jackson, James Fenimore Cooper, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, and long list of others.

Overall, The Original Knickerbocker is an enlightening read. The book may appeal to those who are familiar with Washington Irving's most beloved tales and would like to know about the man behind the stories as well as those who are simply curious about this multifaceted man who was indeed a part of the landscape in which he wrote about.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Engrossing Read, February 11, 2009

By 

Edward A. Joseph (Yonkers, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving (Paperback)

This biography is readable, scholarly, and often engrossing. The author skillfully blends story with literary analysis. During the first third of the book I found my interest at times waning, but it was well worth "staying with it" because the story became more engaging as Irving matured as a human being and as a writer.

Two of Burstein's most significant skills are his ability to summarize and his facility in giving insights into Irving's numerous works, while at the same time maintaining the flow of an interesting life-story. The first example is from Burstein's summary of The Legend of Sleepy Hallow and the second from his commentary on the Sketch Book:

"Despite his [Ichabod Crane's] fears, he cannot resist staying into the night with the women he instructs in psalmody. For among them is one Katrina Van Tassel, the somewhat coquettish daughter of the self-sufficient, ordinarily undemonstrative but altogether thriving Baltus Van Tassel, who relishes his "snug" life "on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so found of nestling."

"Yet much of what he wrote was also a lamentation. He fixated on the intertwined subjects of death and memory. We may say without exaggeration that the bachelor Irving knew loneliness and feared darkness. He reveled in the company of others, which he knew brought him back and animated him. In the Sketch Book, he wrote THROUGH death and wrote OF awakenings."

I would particularly recommend this book for anyone interested in becoming a writer. The book itself is an excellent example of fine non-fiction writing, and the many direct quotes given from Irving's prolific production of both fiction and non-fiction works are instructive.

Here, for example, is what Irving wrote in his biography of Oliver Goldsmith: "There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith. We read his character in every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read."

Irving admired Goldsmith because of his "artless benevolence" and "whimsical, yet amiable views of life." Burstein writes, "It was, for Irving, a matter of seeing literature as a communion of author and reader."

Finally, I recommend buying a copy of the hardcover edition. The dust cover containing the opening of The Legend of Sleepy Hallow is impressive.