Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of April 3rd
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It is the 93rd day of the year, leaving 272 days remaining in 2022.
Irving, who put Tarrytown, N.Y., on the map, wrote histories, biographies, and fiction. His story telling strength was the short story, a format he made popular with his whimsical tales taken from folk legends that he reinvented and put in colonial American.
The first writing that gained him fame was a satirical history of early New York, in which he poked fun at the early Dutch settlers. A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. To get people interested in the tale, Irving placed advertisements in local newspapers seeking information on the "missing" Knickerbocker, who left his hotel without paying the bill.
It was one of the first works of fiction to be writtern and published in America by an American. Irving then toured Europe, where he wrote The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The collection of short stories and essays was amusing, satirical, and eccentric. It easily mixed fact with fiction.
It including the tales of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, considered the first American short stories.
In addition to his short fiction, Irving wrote a five-volume biography of George Washington. He wrote histories of Spain, and during that work, also read Moorish legends, and wrote them up as a companion to the Sketch Book.
Irving died at his home in Tarrytown in 1859.
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