Poor Rip Van Winkle is married to a
terrible nag of a woman and never seems
to be able to do anything right. His only
peace comes when he heads into the
Catskill Mountains on his own to do a bit
of hunting or fishing. One day, during just
such a trip, he meets a strange man
carrying a keg of liquor and is tempted
to taste just a little of it. He falls asleep
and when he awakens again, the world
is inexplicably different from the one he
left behind.
What has become of his wife, his children
and his trusty dog? Why does no one in
the village recognize h m? This classic
tale is an amusing and thought-provoking
read.
Washington Irving was born in New York in 1873, the son of a British merchant and the youngest of eleven children. He trained as a lawyer, but practised only briefly, preferring to work as a journalist and writer of essays and poems, some of which were published as a book, Salmagundi, in 1808.
In 1809, he introduced the eccentric Dutch character Dietrich Knickerbocker, supposed...