Books

London: William Heinemann, 1905.. FINELY BOUND FIRST RACKHAM EDITION. 4to (25 x 19 cm), with 51 mounted colour plates bound together after the text. Bound in dark green morocco over original green cloth boards with gilt design to upper. Numerous mounted full-page colour plates. Very light spotting, plates clean without creases. Near fine. Set in Sleepy Hollow, Irving's slumbersome story an American masterpiece of short prose, based on local history but rooted in European myth and legend.

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.