Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author and diplomat best known for his stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”. Born in Manhattan and named after George Washington, he was sent to live up river during a yellow fever outbreak in 1798, where he learned Old Dutch customs and ghost stories that inspired his classic stories.  He found early fame submitting commentaries pseudonymously to the New York Morning. His first major book was A History of Old New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809), a fictional historian. Prior to publication Irving placed a series of missing person ads, which created public interest and a bestseller when it was released in 1809.

Irving went to England in 1815 to try to save the family trading firm but failed, leaving him with no job but an opportunity to pursue writing as a vocation. He began sending short pieces to New York in 1819 as installments of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., beginning with “Rip Van Winkle” and including “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The series was a success and brought him international recognition, one of the first American writers to become known and respected in Europe.  Irving is considered the first American Man of Letters and an advocate for strong copyright protections and  an important influence on the emerging American literature and personally encouraged the efforts of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.