The Riverside Biographical Series
NUMBER 11
Washington Irving
WASHINGTON IRVING
BY
HENRY W. BOYNTON
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1901
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY W. BOYNTON
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | ||
| I. | Early Years and Surroundings | 1 | |
| II. | Man about Town | 16 | |
| III. | Man of Letters—First Period | 35 | |
| IV. | Man of Letters—Second Period | 59 | |
| V. | A Public Character | 81 | |
| VI. | The Man Himself | 105 |
WASHINGTON IRVING
I
EARLY YEARS AND SURROUNDINGS
Irving's name stands as the first landmark in American letters. Noother American writer has won the same sort of recognition abroad oresteem at home as became his early in life. And he has lost verylittle ground, so far as we can judge by the appeal to figures. Thecopyright on his works ran out long since, and a great many editionsof Irving, cheap and costly, complete and incomplete, have been issuedfrom many sources. Yet his original publishers are now selling, yearby year, more of his books than ever before. There is little doubtthat his work is still widely read, and read not because it isprescribed, but because it gives pleasure; not as the product of a"standard[2] author," but as the expression of a rich and engagingpersonality, which has written itself like an indorsement across theface of a young nation's literature. It is that of a man so sensitivethat the scornful finger of a child might have left him sleepless; sokindly that nobody ever applied to him in vain for sympathy; so modestthat the smallest praise embarrassed him. His manner and tastes weresimple and unassuming. He had no great passions; the brother wasstronger in him than the lover. To these qualities, which might bythemselves belong to ineffectiveness, he added courage, f