The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Washington Irving
- First Published: 1819
- Type of Work: Short Story
- Genres: Short fiction, Folklore
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Class conflict, Love or romance, Superstition, Ghosts or apparitions, Poverty or poor people, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Fear, Eighteenth century, Inheritance or succession, Legends, Folklore, Hallucinations or illusions, Bridges
- Locales: New York, Tarry Town, NY
Early in the story, the reader encounters the legend of the headless horseman, a ghost with which the residents of Sleepy Hollow are familiar. Beheaded by a cannonball during the Revolutionary War, he searches nightly for his head. This anecdote--humorous in itself--provides the key to the trick by which the schoolmaster is driven from the town.
The schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, is also the local singing master and, in that role, meets and falls in love with Katrina Van Tassel, the only child of a well-to-do Dutch farmer. In fact, Irving’s complete catalog of the wealth of...
[The entire page is 572 words long]
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