The Dutch World of Washington Irving

In December of 1809, before finding fame with “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Washington Irving published his satirical A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. This book explains that the History of New York and the Hudson Valley folktales that followed were part of an early trend of responding to the national desire for a historical record. The book argues that these works uniquely describe this part of the American scene in the period of the Early Republic and bring forward the Dutch strain in its history and culture. It explores what the young Irving would have read, heard, and observed during his early life and career in New York City, once part of the former colony of New Netherland, where he was surrounded by Dutch-speaking neighbors and relatives and Dutch literature. Based on these sources, the book argues that Irving's Knickerbocker works—not only his History but also his Hudson Valley stories—represent a crucial effort to preserve Dutch life and folk customs in the Hudson Valley in the face of Anglo-Americanization. Providing the first complete glossary of Irving's Dutch vocabulary and drawing on untranslated Dutch sources, the book offers cultural historians, scholars of American folklore and literature, and the latest generation of Irving's readers unprecedented access into the Dutch world of Washington Irving and his American contemporaries.