The sketch book of Geoffrey Crayon, gent

Chicago: Donohue, Henneberry & co. Hard cover. Good. No dust jacket. hardcover condition good-. 374 pages The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent-BY WASHINGTON IRVING-VINTAGE BOOK-HARDCOVER IN GOOD CONDITION-NO DATE IN BOOK-FIRST AMERICAN EDITION PUBLISHED BY; DONOHUE AND HENNEBERRY & CO. -CHICAGO..374 PAGES There's more to Washington Irving than "Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle". Irving's life was an enthralling tale of world travel, high society, and other, bookish diversions. He would have been, judging from the biography provided at the front of the edition I read, one of the most fascinating tale tellers of his day. That comes across in the Sketchbook; but we also get an idea of the wicked, roguish sense of humor, that impeccable feeling for satire that Irving could deploy even upon those people he loved most. The Sketchbook was written largely in England, at first as Irving was inheriting the family law business from his infirm brother. Rankling under the confines of business that can seem insufferable to the creative mind, Irving turned his full energy to writing. These sketches reflect a man passionate about many things, but who is always doctoring his reminiscences with timeless satire: Literature (The Art of Book Making and the Mutability of Literature, with, respectively, the writers of the new school being assaulted by the old favorites of western lit, and the talking book created in illustration of the fact of history's unkindness to many authors and receptivity to a few)is an abiding love to Irving, with every sketch preceded by a poem from antiquity to the works of Irving's coevals, and the stories themselves can make one believe Irving to have been downright pedantic. For what other reason would he break the flow of innumerable stories with lengthy and often only tangentially relevant allusions. Other stories, such as the delightful Christmas cycle and the numerous sketches with Shakespeare addenda, juxtapose Irving's love and ridicule of the English, especially the rural English, with their antediluvian customs (which Irving commends), and their increasing acquiescence to modern fashion (which he abhors). Ironically, the very people whom he often ridiculed as pretentious, bombastic, destructive, prejudiced, and insensitive, loved him, perhaps because, at the same time, he lauded them for their refinement and their characters so analagous to those of the American people, whom he proclaims a young people, while the British should be something like elder statesmen, big brothers if you will. The Sketchbook is delightful reading