1875 Scarce Book - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and The Spectre Bridegroom by Washington Irving.
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Author: Washington Irving.
Title: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and The Spectre Bridegroom. Illustrated with Original Designs by Eminent Artists.
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., no date (circa 1875).
Language: Text in English.
Size : 9 " X 6.5 ".
Pages: 78 pages.
Binding: Attractive, scarce, and very good, decorated full cloth binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown, the lower part of spine worn - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, some foxing mainly on preliminary and last pages - as shown, dated name of a previous 1877 owner on the first endpaper - as shown, ex-libris of the famous book collector John Lewis (1912–1996) printer, illustrator and collector of printed ephemera on the first endpaper - as shown). All edges gilt.
Illustrations: Complete with 2 frontis full-page illustrations and the 13 in-text illustrations engraved by Duthie & Richardson.
The book: Rare in this nice binding. An attractive early edition of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" -- a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories titled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Written while Irving was living abroad in Birmingham, England, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was first published in 1820. Along with Irving's companion piece "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.
The author: Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as Alhambra, Christopher Columbus and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.