Excerpt from Six Selections From Irving's Sketch-Book: With Notes, Questions, Etc;, For Home and School Use Washington Irving. Born in New York, April 3, 1783; died at Sunnyside on the Hudson, November 28, 1859. Washington Irving has been called "the Dutch Herodotus," "the Father of American Letters," "the Addison of American Literature," "the First Ambassador sent by the New World of Letters to the Old," "the Goldsmith of the nineteenth century." He wrote under a half-dozen pen-names, as follows: Simeon Senex, Jonathan Oldstyle, Launcelot Langstaff, Diedrich Knickerbocker, Fray Antonio Agapida, and Geoffrey Crayon. His mother was of English descent, his father of Scotch; he himself spent many years abroad, but he was a thorough American. He tried law, and made an effort to be interested in mercantile pursuits, but his mind was bent on literature, and in this field he achieved his greatest honors and found in it his life-work. He first went abroad in 1804, returning in 1806. In 1815 he went again to Europe, remaining seventeen years away from America. In 1829 he was Secretary of Legation at the Court of St. James. He returned to America in 1832. As Minister to Spain he spent the years 1842 - 1846 in that country. From 1846 to 1859 he lived a retired life at Sunnyside, his beautiful country place near Tarrytown, New York. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.