Washington Irving

WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859)

A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. By Diedrich Knickerbocker. New York: Inskeep & Bradford, 1809. 2 volumes

Under the guise of Diedrich Knickerbocker, "a small elderly gentleman" who had mysteriously disappeared from his lodgings, leaving behind him a manuscript of "the only authentic history of the times that have been or ever will be published," Washington Irving published his most unified and jubilant work in December 1809. Begun as a parody of a guidebook to New York, Irving ended by writing a comic history of New York under Dutch authority (with such governors as "Walter the Doubter," William the Testy," and "Peter the Headstrong"). Fact is interspersed with exaggeration, burlesque and biting sarcasm. The History's combination of mock solemnity and extravagant irreverence was to lay a foundation of style for subsequent American humorists, from Mark Twain to Will Rogers.

According to Irving's manuscript notebook, 2,000 copies of A History were printed and bound. An engraved view of New Amsterdam is inserted facing the title page of Volume One.