In her deft, easy-to-read style, Catherine Owens Peare captures the bubbling enthusiasm of the young Washington Irving, traces his development as a writer, and tells of a colorful career capped by his appointment as United States Minister in Spain.

He was born in New York City in 1783, the youngest of eight children born to stern, Scottish-born Deacon William Irving and his kindly wife. Washington grew up with a great desire to travel and a fondness for the theater, good food and wine, pleasant company, interesting talk, and writing.

His first journey of any length was by coach over a rough country trail to the quaint Dutch village of Tarrytown—now-adays a busy town within easy commuting distance of New York! The pleasant time that Irving spent exploring the surrounding countryside eventually led to his writing the stories for which he is internationally known. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. After that he traveled extensively, visiting Canada, and journeying all over Europe for seventeen years.

As he grew older and wrote more—both humorous tales and serious works, such as his four volume A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus—he became recognized as the first writer of the United States to make a really important and lasting contribution to world literature.

At the end of his service as Minister to Spain and tired at last of travel, Irving returned to America, to Sunnyside, the lovely house he had built overlooking the Hudson River, in the part of Westchester County haunted by the Headless Horseman. There he lived in peace the remainder of his life in the region that he loved and made famous.

From the dust jacket