Washington Irving and his Pseudonims

         One of the things you have to remember is that Washington Irving had a great sense of humor, which transcended into his writings. Rather than use a tired, old narrator to tell his stories, he creates personas and uses pseudonyms, or fake names, to publish his stories.

         One of his early pseudonyms was Diedrich Knickerbocker, which he used as the author of a book he wrote called A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.This was a political satire, a piece of writing that uses irony and sarcasm to show flaws in something. Before he published this piece, Irving actually posted in the newspaper that a man named Diedrich Knickerbocker had gone missing from a hotel. This went on for a while before Irving then posted, as the landlord of the hotel, that Knickerbocker had left some papers behind that would be published as payment for rent that Knickerbocker had not paid. By the time the piece was actually published, people were already interested and Irving became a quick success.

           Another pseudonym Irving used was Geoffrey Crayon. Geoffrey Crayon is the supposed author of a collection of stories under the title The Sketch Book. These stories, which were greatly influenced by German folk tales, included 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and 'Rip Van Winkle,' two of the stories he is best known for. He also published an additional set of stories using the Crayon pseudonym called Tales of a Traveler, which included the short story 'The Devil and Tom Walker' - another piece heavily influenced by the German legends.