Washington Irving
miscellaneous, script_department, writer
- Born:
- 1783-04-03, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1859-11-28, Tarrytown, New York, USA
- Professions:
- miscellaneous, script_department, writer
Biography
Born in New York City the week America learned the Revolutionary War was truly over, Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) grew up to become the new republic’s first internationally celebrated storyteller. Under the pen-name Geoffrey Crayon he slipped “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) into The Sketch Book, tales that still send wanderers chasing headless horsemen through Hudson Valley lanes. Beyond fiction, Irving tracked real lives—producing spirited portraits of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and his namesake George Washington—while chronicling 15th-century Spain’s drama of monarchs, Moors, Columbus, and the rose-red Alhambra. In the 1840s he traded his desk for diplomacy, representing the United States as minister to Spain.
