Books

John Murray, 1820. 2nd edn. 8vo (8½ x 5½ ins). Contemporary half calf on marbled paper-laid boards, spine gilt ruled and blind-stamped in six compartments with contrasting gilt lettered label, red sprinkled edges (top corners lightly lightly bumped and spine a little faded). Pp. vi + 354 (no inscriptions).

Rip Van Winkle is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, published in 1819 as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains and follows Rip Van Winkle, a Dutch American villager who falls asleep before the American Revolution and wakes up twenty years later to a very different world. His disappearance and return are met with incredulity by those around him. This tale is known for its themes of change and continuity, the American past, and individualism.