Page 14 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

[Footnote +: Legal term, meaning "to give notice to."]

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"Seth Handaside,

"Landlord of the Independent Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street."

On November 28th there appeared in the advertising columns the

announcement of "A History of New York," in two volumes, price three
dollars.

The advertisement says, "This work was found in the chamber of Mr.
Diedrich Knickerbocker, the old gentleman whose sudden and mysterious

disappearance has been noticed. It is published in order to discharge certain
debts he has left behind."

When the book was published the people took it up, expecting to find a
grave and learned history of New York. It was dedicated to the New York

Historical Society, and began with an account of the supposed author, Mr.
Diedrich Knickerbocker. "He was a small, brisk-looking old gentleman,
dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small

cocked hat. He had a few gray hairs plaited and clubbed behind.... The only
piece of finery which he bore about him was a bright pair of square silver

shoe-buckles." The landlord of the inn, who writes this description, adds:
"My wife at once set him down for some eminent country schoolmaster."

Imagine for yourself the astonishment, and then the amusement--in some
cases even the anger--of those who read, to find a most ludicrous

description of the old Dutch settlers of New York, the ancestors of the most
aristocratic families of the metropolis of America. The people that laughed
got the best of it, however, and the book was considered one of the popular

successes of the day. The real author of this book was, of course,
Washington Irving. When forty years later the book was to be included in

his collected works he wrote an "Apology," in which he says, "When I find,
after a lapse of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of my youth