Washington Irving Research Paper

James Cooper and Washington Irving: Different but Alike Washington Irving was born on April 3rd, 1783. He spent his childhood growing up in Manhattan, New York alongside of his ten other siblings. His parents were William and Sarah Irving, his mother was the granddaughter of a clergyman, and his father was an affluent merchant who strongly supported the cause of American Independence. All of Williams sons were expected to support themselves so therefore, he sent Washington to study law in 1801, the year after this his brother Peter established a newspaper. Washington had a great interest in literature, so he contributed many articles to these newspaper about culture and society, they were named “Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle Gent”. These were …show more content…
So therefore Washington decided to create a magazine with his brother Williams and the writer, James Paulding it was called Salmagundi. After a short time the magazine failed in 1808, Irving then wrote A History of New York, a piece about histories and current events in which he took the role of an elderly Dutch American antiquarian, Diedrick Knickerbocker which was used in the World of the End of the Dutch Dynasty. This story made Irving a success. The book was praised as a great comic work in the US and England, its admirers included the writer Sir Walter Scott.
Over the years after he wrote little imaginative literature, and devoted himself to his brothers businesses, in 1814 Irving resigned the editorship. Soon after he briefly serves as a colonel in the New York State militia, when the war ended he once again went to Europe where he lived for the next seventeen years working with Peter in his family business, but in 1818 it failed (Belasco & Johnson, 2008, p. 621). Having learned his living from writing, he bought a country home in Sunnyside, New York in 1835 (Belasco & Johnson, 2008, p. 622). This is where Washington Irving died on November 28,