Best known for his short stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, Washington Irving was a prolific essayist, biographer, and historian, as well as a member of the American diplomatic staff. The three volumes of his Journals provide detailed accounts of Irving's travels, experiences, and observations, creating an enlightening backdrop to both his literary and historical works. Noteworthy for his descriptions of his travels in Europe, of particular interest is Irving's perspective on 19th century American culture and politics, including his beloved New York, as well as his commentary on the treatment of Native Americans and their culture. vol. 2 of 3

The first English edition was issued simultaneously with the American. John Jacob Astor persuaded Irving to undertake this story of his ill-fated enterprise at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1834. Irving had the use of all of Astor's notes and manuscripts, as well as the original journals of such key participants as Robert Stuart, Wilson Price Hunt, and Ramsey Crooks. The resulting work is a classic - an indispensable resource for students of the American West. It is considered to be the "classic account of the first American attempt at settlement on the Pacific coast,1811--initial action towards substantiating our claim to Oregon--including the earliest extended relation of Wilson P. Hunt's overland expedition from St. Louis to that settlement." Howes.

In the Fall of 1832 Washington Irving took part in what he called "a month foray beyond the outposts of human habitation, into the wilderness of the Far West." As was his habit, Irving kept a memorandum book, which he later expanded into A Tour on the Prairies, a real-life Western adventure in the third decade of the nineteenth century. His account is fresh and clear. He saw and makes his readers see the frontiersmen, the trappers, the Indians, and the troopers as they actually were in the 1830s.

In this graphic retelling, the new schoolmaster of Tarrytown, Ichabod Crane, chooses to ignore the stories of a headless ghost, and cross Sleepy Hollow to visit the beautiful Katrina.

The definitive, fascinating, all-reaching biography of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is a classic American icon. Whimsical and wonderful, his work has defined our childhoods and the childhoods of our own children. The silly, simple rhymes are a bottomless well of magic, his illustrations timeless favorites because, quite simply, he makes us laugh. The Grinch, the Cat in the Hat, Horton, and so many more, are his troupe of beloved, and uniquely Seussian, creations. Theodor Geisel, however, had a second, more radical side. It is there that the allure and fasciation of his Dr. Seuss alter ego begins. He had a successful career as an advertising man and then as a political cartoonist, his personal convictions appearing, not always subtly, throughout his books—remember the environmentalist of The Lorax? Geisel was a complicated man on an important mission. He introduced generations to the wonders of reading while teaching young people about empathy and how to treat others well. Agonizing over word choices and rhymes, touching up drawings sometimes for years, he upheld a rigorous standard of perfection for his work. Geisel took his responsibility as a writer for children seriously, talking down to no reader, no matter how small. And with classics like Green Eggs and Ham, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Geisel delighted them while they learned. Suddenly, reading became fun. Coming right off the heels of George Lucas and bestselling Jim Henson, Brian Jay Jones is quickly developing a reputation as a master biographer of the creative geniuses of our time.