The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Other Stories

A lanky, superstitious schoolmaster courts the richest girl in a drowsy Dutch valley — until a moonlit ride home brings him face to face with the Headless Horseman. Bound with it are the Christmas sketches from the same Sketch Book, in the edition Randolph Caldecott illustrated: the stage coach, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the dinner at Bracebridge Hall, where an old squire keeps the feast in the old English way. Washington Irving gave American literature its first enduring legends, and wrote both pieces in England. Fifty-one plates of moonlit landscapes, farmyards and Highland streams by painters including Charles Towne and Laslett John Pott carry the same quiet rural atmosphere as the valley and the Christmas fireside.