Bracebridge Hall

Nearly all readers today know Washington Irving as the author of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Irving is one of America's most enduring, and beloved authors. "Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists" was originally published in 1819 as written by one of Irving's pseudonyms, Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. One of Irving's better-known pseudonyms was Diedrich Knickerbocker, a name inextricably linked to New York City, and to today's New York Knicks. "Bracebridge Hall"'s introduction greets readers with Irving's wonderment at being America's first internationally-popular author, for he writes, "I was looked upon as something new and strange in literature; a kind of demi-savage." Full of anecdotes of traveling and British culture, "Bracebridge Hall" provides a glimpse of the American point of view on England at the start of the 19th Century. A showpiece for Irving's humor, "Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists," will please readers today as they were pleased at its original publication.