Rip Van Winkle

“[Knickerbocker’s book A History of New York’s] chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable authority.” 

This is a self-deprecating joke—Irving had actually written A History of New York, a thoroughly satirical, not historical work. The joke also raises a key theme: the distinction between history and folklore, and the different kinds of truths they reflect about a nation. 

“Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.” 

The Catskills are an ethereal wonderland whose natural majesty draws Rip further and further into the wilderness. Hence, Dame Van Winkle hates them as a source of distraction—she is unlike some idealized version of a “good wife” who could use the mountains to predict the weather. 

“It is a little village, of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists; in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.”

This picturesque town on the Hudson is untethered to time and even to place—it feels Old World and connects the United States to a heritage more ancient and distant than the British Empire.