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27 Works of Washington Irving

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WHILE Governor Manco, or “the one-armed,” kept up a show of military state in the Alhambra, he became nettled at the reproaches continually cast upon his fortress, of being a nestling place of rogues and contrabandistas. On a sudden, the old potentate determined on reform, and setting vigorously to work, ejected whole nests of vagabonds […]

A FEW MILES from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water’s […]

In a stormy night, in the tempestuous times of the French Revolution, a young German was returning to his lodgings, at a late hour, across the old part of Paris. The lightning gleamed, and the loud claps of thunder rattled through the lofty narrow streets—but I should first tell you something about this young German. […]

Rip Van Winkle

Story type: Literature

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A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker By Woden, God of Saxons,From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. Truth is a thing that ever I will keepUnto thylke day in which I creep intoMy sepulchre——CARTWRIGHT The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was […]

Found among the Papers ofthe late Diedrich Knickerbocker A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. —Castle of Indolence. INthe bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore […]

The Specter Bridegroom

Story type: Literature

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He that supper for is dight,He lyes full cold, I trow, this night!Yestreen to chamber I him led,This night Gray-steel has made his bed!—Sir Eger, Sir Grahame, and Sir Gray-steel. On the summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany that lies not far from the […]

The Stout Gentleman

Story type: Literature

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A Stagecoach Romance “I’ll cross it though it blast me!”–Hamlet It was a rainy Sunday in the gloomy month of November. I had been detained, in the course of a journey, by a slight indisposition, from which I was recovering; but was still feverish, and obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn […]

The Widow and Her Son

Story type: Literature

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Pittie olde age, within whose silver hairesHonour and reverence evermore have rain’d. MARLOWE’S TAMBURLAINE Those who are in the habit of remarking such matters must have noticed the passive quiet of an English landscape on Sunday. The clacking of the mill, the regularly recurring stroke of the flail, the din of the blacksmith’s hammer, the […]

Little Britain

Story type: Literature

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What I write is most true…I have a whole booke of cases lying by me which if I should sette foorth, some grave auntients (within the hearing of Bow bell) would be out of charity with me. NASHE. IN the centre of the great city of London lies a small neighborhood, consisting of a cluster […]

The Count Van Horn

Story type: Literature

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During the minority of Louis XV., while the Duke of Orleans was Regent of France, a young Flemish nobleman, the Count Antoine Joseph Van Horn, made his sudden appearance in Paris, and by his character, conduct, and the subsequent disasters in which he became involved, created a great sensation in the high circles of the […]

BY GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. At the dark and melancholy period when Don Roderick the Goth and his chivalry were overthrown on the banks of the Guadalete, and all Spain was overrun by the Moors, great was the devastation of churches and convents throughout that pious kingdom. The miraculous fate of one of those holy piles […]

The Knight Of Malta

Story type: Literature

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER SIR: In the course of a tour which I made in Sicily, in the days of my juvenility, I passed some little time at the ancient city of Catania, at the foot of Mount AEtna. Here I became acquainted with the Chevalier L—-, an old Knight of Malta. It […]

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCH-BOOK. It is the common lamentation of Spanish historiographers, that, for an obscure and melancholy space of time immediately succeeding the conquest of their country by the Moslems, its history is a mere wilderness of dubious facts, groundless fables, and rash exaggerations. Learned men, in cells and cloisters, have worn […]

AND THEIR TREASURE OF AMBERGRIS. At the time that Sir George Somers was preparing to launch his cedar-built bark, and sail for Virginia, there were three culprits among his men, who had been guilty of capital offences. One of them was shot; the others, named Christopher Carter and Edward Waters, escaped. Waters, indeed, made a […]

The Bermudas

Story type: Literature

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A SHAKSPERIAN RESEARCH: BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCHBOOK. “Who did not think, till within these foure yeares, but that these islands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for men to dwell in? Who did not hate the name, when hee was on land, and shun the place when he was on […]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER. Sir: I have read with great satisfaction the valuable paper of your correspondent, Mr. HERMANUS VANDERDONK, (who, I take it, is a descendant of the learned Adrian Vanderdonk, one of the early historians of the Nieuw-Nederlands,) giving sundry particulars, legendary and statistical, touching the venerable village of Communipaw and […]

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCH-BOOK. In the cloisters of the ancient Benedictine convent of San Domingo, at Silos, in Castile, are the mouldering yet magnificent monuments of the once powerful and chivalrous family of Hinojosa. Among these, reclines the marble figure of a knight, in complete armor, with the hands pressed together, as if […]

Communipaw

Story type: Literature

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER. Sir: I observe, with pleasure, that you are performing from time to time a pious duty, imposed upon you, I may say, by the name you have adopted as your titular standard, in following in the footsteps of the venerable KNICKERBOCKER, and gleaning every fact concerning the early times […]

Spanish Romance

Story type: Literature

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER. Sir: I have already given you a legend or two drawn from ancient Spanish sources, and may occasionally give you a few more. I love these old Spanish themes, especially when they have a dash of the Morisco in them, and treat of the times when the Moslems maintained […]

“Let a man write never so well, there are now-a-days a sort of persons they call critics, that, egad, have no more wit in them than so many hobby-horses: but they’ll laugh at you, Sir, and find fault, and censure things, that, egad, I’m sure they are not able to do themselves; a sort of […]

National Nomenclature

Story type: Literature

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER. Sir: I am somewhat of the same way of thinking, in regard to names, with that profound philosopher, Mr. Shandy, the elder, who maintained that some inspired high thoughts and heroic aims, while others entailed irretrievable meanness and vulgarity; insomuch that a man might sink under the insignificance of […]

A LEGEND OF ST. BRANDAN. In the early part of the fifteenth century, when Prince Henry of Portugal, of worthy memory, was pushing the career of discovery along the western coast of Africa, and the world was resounding with reports of golden regions on the main land, and new-found islands in the ocean, there arrived […]

The Enchanted Island

Story type: Literature

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BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCH-BOOK. Break, Phantsie, from thy cave of cloud, And wave thy purple wings, Now all thy figures are allowed, And various shapes of things. Create of airy forms a stream; It must have blood and nought of phlegm; And though it be a walking dream, Yet let it like an […]

The Abencerrage

Story type: Literature

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A SPANISH TALE. On the summit of a craggy hill, a spur of the mountains of Ronda, stands the castle of Allora, now a mere ruin, infested by bats and owlets, but in old times one of the strong border holds of the Christians, to keep watch upon the frontiers of the warlike kingdom of […]

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCH-BOOK. During a summer’s residence in the old Moorish palace of the Alhambra, of which I have already given numerous anecdotes to the public, I used to pass much of my time in the beautiful hall of the Abencerrages, beside the fountain celebrated in the tragic story of that devoted […]

The Birds Of Spring

Story type: Literature

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BY GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. My quiet residence in the country, aloof from fashion, politics, and the money market, leaves me rather at a loss for important occupation, and drives me to the study of nature, and other low pursuits. Having few neighbors, also, on whom to keep a watch, and exercise my habits of observation, […]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER. Sir: I have observed that as a man advances in life, he is subject to a kind of plethora of the mind, doubtless occasioned by the vast accumulation of wisdom and experience upon the brain. Hence he is apt to become narrative and admonitory, that is to say, fond […]