A History of New York

Fülszöveg

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK
by Washington Irving Edited by Edwin T. Bowden
The first edition of A History of New York by "Diedrich Knickerbocker" appeared in 1809 and went tlirough innumerable printings on both sides of the Atlantic. If a few later writers such as Emerson and Whitman found it merely "shallow burlesque," the majority enjoyed it. The London Athenaeum of October 14, 1829, gave the coveted English approval: " 'Knickerbocker's History of New York' was an honest and manly attempt to found an American literature. Those who read it must have exclaimed involuntarily, 'Yes, this is the work which was wanted. The umbilical cord is now severed. America is indeed independent.'" Condescending as that particular review may have been, it did state an accurate point: America's first internationally popular classic had been born, and it is one that has remained—despite its potentially blighting label of a "classic"—still young, still friendly and likable and amusing.
ABOUT THE EDITOR... Tovább

Fülszöveg

A HISTORY OF NEW YORK
by Washington Irving Edited by Edwin T. Bowden
The first edition of A History of New York by "Diedrich Knickerbocker" appeared in 1809 and went tlirough innumerable printings on both sides of the Atlantic. If a few later writers such as Emerson and Whitman found it merely "shallow burlesque," the majority enjoyed it. The London Athenaeum of October 14, 1829, gave the coveted English approval: " 'Knickerbocker's History of New York' was an honest and manly attempt to found an American literature. Those who read it must have exclaimed involuntarily, 'Yes, this is the work which was wanted. The umbilical cord is now severed. America is indeed independent.'" Condescending as that particular review may have been, it did state an accurate point: America's first internationally popular classic had been born, and it is one that has remained—despite its potentially blighting label of a "classic"—still young, still friendly and likable and amusing.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Edwin T. Bowden is an associate professor of English at the University of Texas. He took his B.A. degree at Harvard and his Ph.D. at Yale. His particular concern has been with American hterature. His published books include The Themes of Henry James and The Dungeon of the Heart: Human Isolation and the American Novel. In recent years he has been especially interested in the earlier period of American literature, and in 1962 he made available to the reading public a rehable text of one of the major eighteenth-century poets. The Satiric Poems of John Trumbull: The Progress of Dulness and M'Fingal. Vissza