Biographical SummaryWashington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in Manhattan, New York City. He was the youngest of eleven children born to his parents, William and Sarah Irving. During the week he was born, Americans emerged victorious in the Revolutionary War, and his parents named him after the war hero, General George Washington. When Irving was six years old, he met his namesake, and Washington blessed the child, which triggered a sense of gratitude and concern for the president. This meeting would inspire Irving to write his five-volume biography of George Washington, which was completed in 1859. Washington Irving grew up in a wealthy merchant family and received a good education, although he was an uninterested student. In his early adolescence he often skipped classes to attend theater performances. During his free time, Irving read tirelessly and explored the nearby Hudson River Valley. Both contributed to his ever-growing imagination. His adventures in the valley also exposed him to local myths and folk tales, which are lucidly expounded in his tales. In 1798, yellow fever broke out in Manhattan, and Irving's family sent him to live with James Paulding in Yorktown, away from the disease. While there, he became familiar with the Dutch town of Sleepy Hollow and became fascinated by their ghost stories. Irving based perhaps his most famous work, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” on his experiences there. During his childhood, he also embarked on adventures across the Hudson River Valley, to Johnstown, New York, and the Catskill Mountains, which became the setting of another of his short stories, "Rip Van Winkle." At the age of nineteen Washington Irving began his literary career by writing t...... center of paper ......literature and society, some of which can still be seen today. In the same way that the Headless Horseman lives on as the ghost of the fallen soldier, Washington Irving's legacy lives on through the ideas he planted deeply in American culture. Works Cited Canby, Henry S. "Washington Irving." Criticism of world literature. Ed. James P. Draper. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992. Print. Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. New York: William Morrow and Company Inc., 1990. Print Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories. New York: Airmont Publishing Co., 1964. Print.Wagenknecht, Edward. "Washington Irving." Criticism of world literature. Ed. James P. Draper.Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992. Print."Washington Irving." Authors discovering UXL Junior. Detroit: U*X*L, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Network. October 23. 2013.