| "Rip Van Winkle" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Washington Irving | |
.jpg) Depiction of Rip Van Winkle by John Quidor (1829). Housed at Art Institute of Chicago. | |
 Text available at Wikisource | |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short story |
| Publication | |
| Published in | The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. |
| Publication date | 1819 |
"Rip Van Winkle" (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɪp fɑŋ ˈʋɪŋkəl]) is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their strong liquor and falls deeply asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution.
Inspired by a conversation on nostalgia with his American expatriate brother-in-law, Irving wrote the story while temporarily living in Birmingham, England. It was published in his collection, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. While the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains near where Irving later took up residence, he admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills."[1]
The Mountain Top Historical Society in Haines Falls, New York, has hosted a community reading of the story every year since 2019. The Mountain Top Historical Society is located at the top of Kaaterskill Clove in New York's Catskill Mountains, where the story is set.[2]
- ^ Pierre M. Irving (1883). The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. Vol. 2. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 176.
- ^ "5th Annual Reading of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle".