Editing Washington Irving (section)

===Return to the United States===
[[File:Christian Schussele - Washington Irving and his Literary Friends at Sunnyside - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Irving and his friends at [[Sunnyside (Tarrytown, New York)|Sunnyside]]]]
Irving arrived in New York on May 21, 1832, after 17 years abroad. That September, he accompanied Commissioner on Indian Affairs [[Henry Leavitt Ellsworth]] on a surveying mission, along with companions [[Charles La Trobe]]<ref>{{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography |id=A020077b |title=La Trobe, Charles Joseph (1801–1875)  |access-date=July 13, 2007 |author=Jill Eastwood  |volume=2 |year=1967 |pages=89–93}}</ref> and Count Albert-Alexandre de Pourtales, and they traveled deep into [[Indian Territory]] (now the state of Oklahoma).<ref>See Irving, "A Tour on the Prairies", ''Works'' 22.</ref>  At the completion of his western tour, Irving traveled through Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, where he became acquainted with politician and novelist [[John Pendleton Kennedy]].<ref>Williams, 2:48–49</ref>

Irving was frustrated by bad investments, so he turned to writing to generate additional income, beginning with ''A Tour on the Prairies'' which related his recent travels on the frontier. The book was another popular success and also the first book written and published by Irving in the United States since ''A History of New York'' in 1809.<ref>Jones, 318.</ref>  In 1834, he was approached by fur magnate [[John Jacob Astor]], who convinced him to write a history of his fur trading colony in [[Astoria, Oregon]]. Irving made quick work of Astor's project, shipping the fawning biographical account ''[[Astoria (book)|Astoria]]'' in February 1836.<ref>Jones, 324.</ref> In 1835, Irving, Astor, and a few others founded the [[Saint Nicholas Society in the City of New York]].

During an extended stay at Astor's home, Irving met explorer [[Benjamin Bonneville]] and was intrigued with his maps and stories of the territories beyond the [[Rocky Mountains]].<ref>Williams, 2:76–77.</ref> The two men met in Washington, D.C., several months later, and Bonneville sold his maps and rough notes to Irving for $1,000.<ref>Jones, 323.</ref> Irving used these materials as the basis for his 1837 book ''The Adventures of Captain Bonneville''.<ref>Burstein, 288.</ref> These three works made up Irving's "western" series of books and were written partly as a response to criticism that his time in England and Spain had made him more European than American.<ref>Williams, 2:36.</ref> Critics such as James Fenimore Cooper and [[Philip Freneau]] felt that he had turned his back on his American heritage in favor of English aristocracy.<ref>Jones, 316.</ref> Irving's western books were well received in the United States, particularly ''A Tour on the Prairies'',<ref>Jones, 318-28.</ref> though British critics accused him of "book-making".<ref>''Monthly Review, New and Improved'', ser. 2 (June 1837): 279–90. See Aderman, Ralph M., ed. ''Critical Essays on Washington Irving''. (G. K. Hall, 1990), 110–11.</ref>

[[File:Sunnyside, Tarrytown, New York.JPG|thumb|right|Irving acquired his famous home in Tarrytown, New York, known as Sunnyside, in 1835.]]
In 1835, Irving purchased a "neglected cottage" and its surrounding riverfront property in Tarrytown, New York, which he named [[Sunnyside (Tarrytown, New York)|Sunnyside]] in 1841.<ref>Burstein, 295.</ref> It required constant repair and renovation over the next 20 years, with costs continually escalating, so he reluctantly agreed to become a regular contributor to ''[[The Knickerbocker]]'' magazine in 1839, writing new essays and short stories under the Knickerbocker and Crayon pseudonyms.<ref>Jones, 333.</ref> He was regularly approached by aspiring young authors for advice or endorsement, including Edgar Allan Poe, who sought Irving's comments on "[[William Wilson (short story)|William Wilson]]" and "[[The Fall of the House of Usher]]".<ref>Edgar Allan Poe to N. C. Brooks, Philadelphia, September 4, 1838. Cited in Williams, 2:101-02.</ref>

In 1837, a lady of [[Charleston, South Carolina]] brought to the attention of [[William Clancy]], newly appointed bishop to [[Demerara]], a passage in ''The Crayon Miscellany'', and questioned whether it accurately reflected Catholic teaching or practice. The passage under "Newstead Abbey" read:<blockquote>One of the parchment scrolls thus discovered, throws rather an awkward light upon the kind of life led by the friars of Newstead. It is an indulgence granted to them for a certain number of months, in which a plenary pardon is assured in advance for all kinds of crimes, among which, several of the most gross and sensual are specifically mentioned, and the weaknesses of the flesh to which they were prone.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A3URAAAAYAAJ&q=crayon+miscellany+by+washington+irving|title=The Crayon Miscellany|first=Washington|last=Irving|date=January 1, 1849|publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons|via=Google Books}}</ref></blockquote>

Clancy wrote to Irving, who "promptly aided the investigation into the truth, and promised to correct in future editions the misrepresentation complained of". Clancy traveled to his new posting by way of England, and bearing a letter of introduction from Irving, stopped at [[Newstead Abbey]] and was able to view the document to which Irving had alluded. Upon inspection, Clancy discovered that it was, in fact, not an indulgence issued to the friars from any ecclesiastical authority, but a pardon given by the king to some parties suspected of having broken "forest laws". Clancy requested the local pastor to forward his findings to Catholic periodicals in England, and upon publication, send a copy to Irving. Whether this was done is not clear as the disputed text remains in the 1849 edition.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z79LiSQC8YEC&dq=William+Clarke&pg=PA264|title=Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States|first=Richard Henry|last=Clarke|date=January 1, 1872|publisher=P. O'Shea|via=Google Books}}</ref>

Irving also championed America's maturing literature, advocating stronger [[copyright]] laws to protect writers from the kind of piracy that had initially plagued ''The Sketch Book''. Writing in the January 1840 issue of ''Knickerbocker'', he openly endorsed copyright legislation pending in Congress.  "We have a young literature", he wrote, "springing up and daily unfolding itself with wonderful energy and luxuriance, which … deserves all its fostering care". The legislation, however, did not pass at that time.<ref>Washington Irving to Lewis G. Clark, (before January 10, 1840), ''Works'', 25:32–33.</ref>

In 1841, Irving was elected to the [[National Academy of Design]] as an Honorary Academician.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalacademy.org/academy/national-academicians/?na=I|title=National Academicians|access-date=January 18, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140116083431/http://www.nationalacademy.org/academy/national-academicians/?na=I|archive-date=January 16, 2014}}</ref> He also began a friendly correspondence with Charles Dickens and hosted Dickens and his wife at Sunnyside during Dickens's American tour in 1842.<ref>Jones, 341.</ref>