Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is set in 1790 around the countryside the Dutch settlement of Tarryton, New York. Lanky and supertitious schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, has just moved there from Connecticut. He finds himself romantically attracted to 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of a wealthy farmer. But his interest is hampered by another suiter called "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, who is only after her for her inheritence. The tention between them comes to a head, and Crane is persued by a mystical "Headless Horseman." Enchanting for new readers, great for a colector's item.

Set in the Catskills of New York prior to the American Revolution, the kindly Rip Van Winkle, is a colonial British-American villager of Dutch descent. He is a lover of the country and visits town often, where he enjoys entertaining children with stories and gifts. But his downfall is his slothfulness, and his farm goes to pot. To escape his nagging wife, one day in the autumn he wanders into the mountains with his dog, Wolf. A man dressed in old Dutch clothing asks his help in carrying a keg up the steep slope. Arriving at an amphitheatre-like hollow, he finds a group of ornately dressed, bearded men playing nine-pins. Though silence prevails, Rip begins to drink their liquoir and falls asleep. When he awakes he discovers that he also now has a foot-long white beard, and Wolf is nowhere to be found. Returning to his village, there is no one whom he recognizes. He finds out that his wife has died and many of his friends are off at war. He has slept for twenty years! Just as interesting as ever! Both of these classic short stories first appeared in Irving's book "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." Because of these he was one of the first American authors to achieve fame in Europe in 1819.