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• Biographies on Washington Irving

Mention the name of Washington Irving and well-read people will immediately come up with "Rip van Winkle","The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and little else. Not to diminish the greatness of those short stories from around 1820, there is a great deal more to the man and the writer. Two new biographies, Brian Jay Jones' "Washington Irving, An American Original" and Andrew Burstein's, "The Original Knickerbocker, The Life of Washington Irving", go a long way\ to placing this extraordinary man in his true context, the Benjamin Franklin of the first half of the 19th century.

This native New Yorker (1783-1859) from an upper middle class family of merchants, would be the first writer in recorded history to make a living as literary figure in an era of shaky domestic copyrights and no international copyright agreements. His first book, 1809's "A History of New York" is a satire that changed history. It was Dickens' model for "The Pickwick Papers"; it coined the term "Knickerbocker" (from the book's fictitious narrator) for a New Yorker, from which the New York Knicks get their name. It also called New York City "Gotham" and popularized the Dutch Father Christmas, St. Nicholas. All this from his first book!

Before he died on the eve of the Civil War, he would write the first scholarly biographies in English of Christopher Columbus, George Washington,John Jacob Astor and Oliver Goldsmith. He would popularize Spain's history, the Alhambra, and even the Prophet Mohammed. His personal association with no less than four Presidents and Daniel Webster led to three diplomatic postings, where in London, he would be a critical go between in two breakthrough treaties between the United States and Great Britain. As Minister (the highest diplomatic rank at that time) to Spain in the 1840's, he served with such distinction that a Spanish gentlemen some years later remarked—"Why does not your government send Washington Irving to this court? I assure you it

would be difficult for our government to refuse anything which Irving should ask."

Mr. Burstein's superbly scholarly study is best at analyzing Irving the writer, and his detail, for the non-scholar, can be excessive. But, his mastery of this part of Irving is complete. Which is why I lean to Brian Jay Jones' equally well researched, but more balanced look at Irving the man. Jones really captures the many sides of this American Renaissance man who did everything from reinventing the prose short story, to popularizing the travel narrative, to giving us the phrase, "the almighty dollar." From the point of view of a one time reader, Mr. Jones knows how make a narrative flow much like his subject.

For those who cannot master the 32 volumes that make up Washington Irving's output, these two scholars will provide you with two very

different road maps of the man who put American literature on the map. Take your pick and rediscover an important part of American history.

Hey—can you think of any other major professional sports teams with a literary name? It is one from this era of American literature—the Baltimore Ravens.