Editing Washington Irving (section)

===Life in Europe===

====''The Sketch Book''====
[[File:TheSketchbookTitlePage.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The front page of ''The Sketch Book'' (1819)]]

Irving spent the next two years trying to bail out the family firm financially but eventually had to declare bankruptcy.<ref>Hellman, 97.</ref> With no job prospects, he continued writing throughout 1817 and 1818. In the summer of 1817, he visited [[Walter Scott]], beginning a lifelong personal and professional friendship.<ref>Jones, 154-60.</ref>

Irving composed the short story "Rip Van Winkle" overnight while staying with his sister Sarah and her husband, [[Henry van Wart]], in [[Birmingham|Birmingham, England]], a place that inspired other works as well.<ref>Jones, 169.</ref> In October 1818, Irving's brother William secured for Irving a post as chief clerk to the United States Navy and urged him to return home.<ref>William Irving Jr. to Washington Irving, New York, October 14, 1818, Williams, 1:170-71.</ref> Irving turned the offer down, opting to stay in England to pursue a writing career.<ref>Washington Irving to Ebenezer Irving, [London, late November 1818], ''Works'', 23:536.</ref>

In the spring of 1819, Irving sent to his brother Ebenezer in New York a set of short prose pieces that he asked be published as ''[[The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.]]'' The first installment, containing "Rip Van Winkle", was an enormous success, and the rest of the work was equally successful; it was issued in 1819–1820 in seven installments in New York and in two volumes in London ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" appeared in the sixth issue of the New York edition and the second volume of the London edition).<ref>See reviews from ''Quarterly Review'' and others, in ''The Sketch Book'', xxv–xxviii; PMI 1:418–19.</ref>

Like many successful authors of this era, Irving struggled against literary bootleggers.<ref>Burstein, 114</ref> In England, some of his sketches were reprinted in periodicals without his permission, a legal practice as there was no international copyright law at the time. To prevent further piracy in Britain, Irving paid to have the first four American installments published as a single volume by John Miller in London.

Irving appealed to Walter Scott for help procuring a more reputable publisher for the remainder of the book. Scott referred Irving to his own publisher, London powerhouse [[John Murray (publisher, born 1778)|John Murray]], who agreed to take on ''The Sketch Book''.<ref>Irving, Washington. "Preface to the Revised Edition", ''The Sketch Book'', ''Works'', 8:7; Jones, 188-89.</ref> From then on, Irving would publish concurrently in the United States and Britain to protect his copyright, with Murray as his English publisher of choice.<ref>McClary, Ben Harris, ed.  ''Washington Irving and the House of Murray''. (University of Tennessee Press, 1969).</ref>

Irving's reputation soared, and for the next two years, he led an active social life in Paris and Great Britain, where he was often feted as an anomaly of literature: an upstart American who dared to write English well.<ref>See comments of William Godwin, cited in PMI, 1:422; Lady Littleton, cited in PMI 2:20.</ref>

====''Bracebridge Hall'' and ''Tales of a Traveller''====
[[File:Portrait of Washington Irving attr. to Charles Robert Leslie.jpg|thumb|right|Portrait of Irving in about 1820, attributed to [[Charles Robert Leslie]]]]

With both Irving and publisher John Murray eager to follow up on the success of ''The Sketch Book'', Irving spent much of 1821 traveling in Europe in search of new material, reading widely in Dutch and German folk tales.  Hampered by writer's block—and depressed by the death of his brother William—Irving worked slowly, finally delivering a completed manuscript to Murray in March 1822.  The book, [[Bracebridge Hall|''Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists, A Medley'']] (the location was based loosely on [[Aston Hall]], occupied by members of the Bracebridge family, near his sister's home in Birmingham) was published in June 1822.

The format of ''Bracebridge'' was similar to that of ''The Sketch Book'', with Irving, as Crayon, narrating a series of more than 50 loosely connected short stories and essays.  While some reviewers thought ''Bracebridge'' to be a lesser imitation of ''The Sketch Book'', the book was well received by readers and critics.<ref>Aderman, Ralph M., ed. ''Critical Essays on Washington Irving''. (G. K. Hall, 1990), 55–57; STW 1:209.</ref> "We have received so much pleasure from this book", wrote critic Francis Jeffrey in the ''Edinburgh Review'', "that we think ourselves bound in gratitude... to make a public acknowledgement of it".<ref>Aderman, 58–62.</ref> Irving was relieved at its reception, which did much to cement his reputation with European readers.

Still struggling with writer's block, Irving traveled to Germany, settling in [[Dresden]] in the winter of 1822. Here he dazzled the royal family and attached himself to Amelia Foster, an American living in Dresden with her five children.<ref>See Reichart, Walter A. ''Washington Irving and Germany''. (University of Michigan Press, 1957).</ref> The 39-year-old Irving was particularly attracted to Foster's 18-year-old daughter Emily and vied in frustration for her hand. Emily finally refused his offer of marriage in the spring of 1823.<ref>Jones, 207-14.</ref>

He returned to Paris and began collaborating with playwright [[John Howard Payne]] on translations of French plays for the English stage, with little success. He also learned through Payne that the novelist [[Mary Shelley|Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley]] was romantically interested in him, though Irving never pursued the relationship.<ref>See Sanborn, F.B., ed. ''The Romance of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, John Howard Payne and Washington Irving''. Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1907.</ref>

In August 1824, Irving published the collection of essays ''[[Tales of a Traveller]]''—including the short story "[[The Devil and Tom Walker]]"—under his Geoffrey Crayon persona. "I think there are in it some of the best things I have ever written", Irving told his sister.<ref>Irving to Catharine Paris, Paris, September 20, 1824, ''Works'' 24:76</ref> But while the book sold respectably, ''Traveller'' was dismissed by critics, who panned both ''Traveller'' and its author. "The public have been led to expect better things", wrote the ''United States Literary Gazette'', while the ''New-York Mirror'' pronounced Irving "overrated".<ref>See reviews in ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'', ''Westminster Review'', et al., 1824. Cited in Jones, 222.</ref> Hurt and depressed by the book's reception, Irving retreated to Paris where he spent the next year worrying about finances and scribbling down ideas for projects that never materialized.<ref>Hellman, 170–89.</ref>

====Spanish books====
While in Paris, Irving received a letter from [[Alexander Hill Everett]] on January 30, 1826. Everett, recently the American Minister to Spain, urged Irving to join him in Madrid,<ref>Burstein, 191.</ref> noting that a number of manuscripts dealing with the Spanish conquest of the Americas had recently been made public. Irving left for Madrid and enthusiastically began scouring the Spanish archives for colorful material.<ref>Bowers, 22–48.</ref>

[[File:Alhambra view.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|right|The [[Alhambra]] palace in [[Granada, Spain|Granada]], southern Spain, where Irving briefly resided in 1829, inspired one of his most colorful books.]]With full access to the American consul's massive library of Spanish history, Irving began working on several books at once. The first offspring of this hard work, ''[[A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus]]'', was published in January 1828. The book was popular in the United States and in Europe and would have 175 editions published before the end of the century.<ref>Burstein, 196.</ref> It was also the first project of Irving's to be published with his own name, instead of a pseudonym, on the title page.<ref>Jones, 248.</ref> Irving was invited to stay at the palace of the [[Duke of Gor]], who gave him unfettered access to his library containing many medieval manuscripts.<ref>Jones, 207.</ref>''[[A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada]]'' was published a year later,<ref>Burstein, 212.</ref> followed by ''Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus'' in 1831.<ref>Burstein, 225.</ref>

Irving's writings on Columbus are a mixture of history and fiction, a genre now called romantic history. Irving based them on extensive research in the Spanish archives, but also added imaginative elements aimed at sharpening the story. The first of these works is the source of the durable myth that medieval Europeans [[Myth of the flat Earth|believed the Earth was flat]].<ref>Russell, Jeffrey Burton. ''Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians''.  Praeger Paperback, 1997. {{ISBN|0-275-95904-X}}</ref> According to the popular book, Columbus proved the Earth was round.<ref>Loewen, James W. ''Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong''. New York: The New Press, 1999: 59.</ref>

In 1829, Irving was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?year=1829;year-max=1829;smode=advanced;f1-date=1829|access-date=April 7, 2021|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> That same year, he moved into Granada's ancient palace Alhambra, "determined to linger here", he said, "until I get some writings under way connected with the place".<ref>Washington Irving to Peter Irving, Alhambra, June 13, 1829. ''Works'', 23:436</ref> Before he could get any significant writing underway, however, he was notified of his appointment as Secretary to the American Legation in London. Worried he would disappoint friends and family if he refused the position, Irving left Spain for England in July 1829.<ref>Hellman, 208.</ref>

====Secretary to the American legation in London====
Arriving in London, Irving joined the staff of American Minister [[Louis McLane]]. McLane immediately assigned the daily secretary work to another man and tapped Irving to fill the role of aide-de-camp.  The two worked over the next year to negotiate a trade agreement between the United States and the [[British West Indies]], finally reaching a deal in August 1830. That same year, Irving was awarded a medal by the Royal Society of Literature, followed by an honorary doctorate of civil law from Oxford in 1831.<ref>PMI, 2:429, 430, 431–32</ref>

Following McLane's recall to the United States in 1831 to serve as Secretary of Treasury, Irving stayed on as the legation's chargé d'affaires until the arrival of [[Martin Van Buren]], President [[Andrew Jackson]]'s nominee for British Minister. With Van Buren in place, Irving resigned his post to concentrate on writing, eventually completing ''[[Tales of the Alhambra]]'', which would be published concurrently in the United States and England in 1832.<ref>PMI, 3:17–21.</ref>

Irving was still in London when Van Buren received word that the United States Senate had refused to confirm him as the new Minister. Consoling Van Buren, Irving predicted that the Senate's partisan move would backfire. "I should not be surprised", Irving said, "if this vote of the Senate goes far toward elevating him to the presidential chair".<ref>Washington Irving to Peter Irving, London, March 6, 1832, ''Works'', 23:696</ref>