Washington Irving has been rather eclipsed by Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, etc, though he was an excellent and versatile man of letters in his own right. This collection of sketches, stories, essays and random prose pieces includes two recognised minor classics, Rip van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The miscellaneous pieces include a description of a visit to Stratford on Avon, an essay on the poet king James I of Scotland, and a study of the character of the Red Indian, among much else. A companion volume is Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, a quasi farcical tale of mistaken identity set in Renaissance England.