Washington Irving & The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Home

Click here to access a brief biography of Washington Irving from Bibliomania. 

Want to learn more about Washington Irving?

Watch this video report by ABC giving a tour of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Washington Irving wanted New England to have folklore

and a literary tradition like Scotland and other places in Europe.

 So, he did what any good romantic with an imagination would do

--he made one up.

Inspired by the rural New York countryside he had seen in his youth,

Washington Irving wrote one of the first American short stories,

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Disney released an animated version of the legend in 1949,

and Irving's story has inspired many more terrifying tales

and works of art.

You can click here to read the entire short story of

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" online.