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Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor.
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But with a washable sofa, stains don't stand a chance. All of our sofa collections come with fully machine-washable covers and cushions, making cleanup effortless. Liquid and stain-resistant fabrics provide extra protection against everyday messes. Plus, with modular designs, you can rearrange your sofa however you like. Perfect for growing families and changing spaces.
Starting at just $699, it's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa. Visit washablefas.com today and save. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, coming to you from the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. In the early years of the American Republic, a new kind of fame was beginning to take shape.
Not built on power or position, but on personality and the ability to hold an audience. Brian J. Jones, author of Washington Irving, An American Original, brings us the story of America's first literary celebrity, the man who outlasted generations with stories like Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Here's Brian. Washington Irving was literally born with the nation.
He was born the week that we announced the treaty. In 1783, that it ended the war. He is named after the great hero of the war. He is actually named after George Washington. One of the great things about Washington Irving is he's a great storyteller, and sometimes he wouldn't let the facts get in the way of a great story.
So sometimes you have to trust but verify it, or just let him get away with it. This is a story he always told, which was when Washington was marched through the city. I think to be sworn in as president Irving was standing watching the parade and his nanny held him up on her shoulders and presented him to George Washington and said, here's a baron, here's a baron who was named after you. And according to the story is Washington put his hand on Irving's head and blessed his own namesake. Irving actually had a etching of that done that hangs in his home in Sleepy Hollow, up in Westchester County, New York.
Told that story all of his life, but he did actually have it commemorated. You can see that print still hanging in his house. Irving was not a fantastic student. He was written off as a dunt by his teachers, sort of written off by his father. His father was a sort of pious businessman who didn't have a lot of time for kids.
Irving would have loved being a kid in modern times, I think, because we let them do, you know, be more kids. On through school, he was sort of, you know, again, he was dismissed as a dunce and as disinterested. And Irving did a lot of reading of what sort of nowadays we would call pop culture and comic books and, you know, the equivalent of that back in the 1780s and 90s. Wasn't really reading a lot of the sort of deep novels of the day or anything like that. It was sort of immersing himself in the popular culture of the day, the sort of dime store novels and comic books.
And that was sort of how he nurtured his literary knowledge. But it really pays off for Irving because that was sort of the reservoir he went into. He knew how to write the way people spoke. He sort of understood the way people sounded. And I think that came out of, you know, the pop culture that he consumed as a kid.
No. He was the youngest of a whole group of kids, I think 11 total, some of whom died in birth. But they were all business people in New York at the time. And Irving, it was assumed, was going to go into business with the family. And it was just sort of a trading company.
Irving was not interested in the family business. He was trying to find something else to do. Started to study the law, mainly because he was just looking for some security, more than because of a great love of the law. He had a brother, John Treat Irving, who was a fantastic lawyer. But Irving's not really interested in studying the law, but he does study under a noteworthy judge in New York City at the time and falls in love with the judge's daughter.
And she's much younger than he her name's Matilda Hoffman, and he is absolutely smitten with her, and she ends up dying of likely consumption, very young, and Irving is absolutely heartbroken by that. But at that time, he has also been researching what becomes his first book. He's fascinated by the history of his hometown. He's fascinated by the history of New York City. And he sort of takes all of his notes and runs upriver to recover from, you know, grieving his love lost and brings his batch of research with him and writes his first book, which is called A History of New York.
It is allegedly written by a famous Dutch historian that Irving completely makes up, named Dietrich Knickerbocker. And Irving does something really brilliant with this book. That does not get enough credit for because the word viral marketing did not exist back in 1809. Irving In the weeks leading up to the publication of his book, he takes out a series of fake ads in the local newspapers in New York City. Allegedly from the proprietor of a hotel named Seth Handesai, that's such an Irving name, but you know, fictional hotel proprietor, who says.
This crazy old man went missing from his hotel the other day, went missing from my hotel and hasn't paid his bill. But he left behind a manuscript, so if he doesn't return to pay his bill, I will have to publish his manuscript. And immediately the whole city of New York is fascinated by this story. And Irving follows it up with another ad that says, Okay, people tell me they've seen this crazy old man wandering around towns, and people on the carriage going north said they saw him. I found out that he's got this little manuscript here that I will still publish if Diedrich Knickerbocker doesn't come back to claim his book.
And on that sort of groundswell of public interest, on his Dietrich Knickerbocker is going to show up, he's going to come back and pay his bill. Irving publishes A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker. completely made up historian that just sells like crazy. Because everybody's on the edge of the seat wondering who this is and what the story is about. There was a concerned group of citizens who were going to put together a group of people to try to do a search for Diedrich Knickerbocker, and they went to go consult a lawyer and they happened to ask John Treat Irving, Irving's brother, who was aware of what his own brother was doing and had to reassure this group of concerned citizens that he was pretty sure everything was going to turn out okay in the end for that.
So Irving launches his book on the back of this huge viral marketing campaign. And it is this national sensation, not just in New York, but kind of all up and down the seaboard. a book that everybody read. Um One of the great things about Irving in that book and all the rest is that Irving writes in this absolutely clear way. conversational English.
This voice in here is so modern. It's not this Puritan prose of Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's just this really fascinating speaking directly to the reader and kind of like nodding a wink at the reader a lot of times, too. It's very, very funny.
So on the back of the success of that book, Irving decides he might want to become a writer, but Irving's biggest problem is Irving loves preparing to write more than he loves the actual job of writing and is always finding other things to do. He does found a satirical magazine with a group of sort of like-minded artistic friends, a magazine called Samagandhi. which is basically chopped salad. But it's very much the ancestor of, you know, Mad Magazine or the National Lampoon. But it was Irving sort of feeling his way and still finding that voice.
And my goodness, the story we hear over and over again on this show: not the best student, didn't learn his craft in the schools with a fancy, refined Ivy League, no self-taught, and an original voice. And boy, what a salesman, what a huckster. The story of Washington Irving continues here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear again can be found there daily.
Again, Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep these great American stories coming. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member Finra and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures are available at Public. Public dot com slash disclosures. Kids, pets, life, your sofa sees it all. But with a washable sofa, stains don't stand a chance.
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Visit washablefas.com today and save. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. This is Jana Kramer from Windown with Jana Kramer. Every Mother's Day, I tell myself I'm going to be more thoughtful than flowers because flowers are beautiful, but they don't last. In my house, everyone always ends up in the kitchen - friends, family, the kids.
And I love having things around that spark conversation and feel special. That's why I love the Lennox Spice Village, and your mom will too. It's a set of 24 hand-painted little houses that are actually spice jars. And I swear, people notice it the second they walk in. It's charming, it's nostalgic, and it somehow makes even everyday cooking feel a little more fun.
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Your social media feed delivers plenty of advice, but it doesn't know you. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't give physical exams or order tests. Doctors do. At the American Medical Association, we believe the best care starts with a real conversation with someone who understands the science and your unique health.
So stay curious, ask questions, but when it's time to make decisions, make them with a doctor. Learn more at amahealthvershype.org. That's amahealthvshype.org. And we continue with Our American Stories and with author Brian J. Jones.
Washington Irving, an American original, is the book. Let's return to the story. Here's Brian. He ends up during the War of 1812, wants to serve in the War of 1812, can't really fall into the war as trying. He ends up being a sort of aide-de-camp to the governor of New York and doesn't really ever see any action.
But he's editing a literary magazine in the United States all during the War of 1812 and printing biographies of naval heroes and things like that. But he's one of the first magazines. He has really good taste. And he's one of the first magazines anywhere that prints the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner. By Francis Scott Key, it's submitted to his magazine, and he publishes it in the magazine and basically says, in so many words, We really need to figure out what we can do with this.
You know, this is a really intriguing piece. There should be something we can do with this. Irving, great taste, and sort of very early on figured out that there's something going on with that Sears Bangle Banner. Did necessarily push it as a national anthem, but was really intrigued by it. And Irving at this point travels to Europe just sort of on a vacation, but while he's over there, his family business goes bankrupt.
And Irving has to go to Liverpool with one of his other brothers and try to bail the company out. They're the only two brothers sort of on the ground over in Europe at that time. And Irving had traveled in Europe fairly widely as a young man, was sent by the family to go to Europe. It was something sort of well-bred young men were intended to do, was go to Europe. And Irving, again, spent most of his time at parties, you know, tea parties and drinking and just conversation rather than going to art museums and looking at sculpture.
He was much more interested in the people, which again really informs Irving's work. But his brother's a little disappointed. One of his oldest brother, who was bankrolling, had accused him of galloping through Italy, I think was the phrase he used and not really stopping to see anything.
So Irving, you know, Irving knows the continent somewhat, and so he's in Liverpool with his brother trying to bail the company down. It takes about a year to do, and it's just complete and absolute utter misery, especially for this young man who has zero interest in the family business. But does a, you know, a really, actually a remarkably good job keeping the family afloat, even as the business goes down. And his oldest brother is a congressman in New York, William Irving. And his brother says, you know, we're going to try to find you a job here in the United States.
We will take care of you. You're our youngest brother. We'll take care of you. I'm going to talk to the Secretary of the Navy and try to see if I can get you a job working in the Department of the Navy doing something where you get a steady paycheck and you've got time to write. And Irving at that point has been dabbling at what he calls little sketches, which are little short stories, in his notebooks, and makes this huge decision that is sort of a sliding doors moment in American literature where he, you know, his brother says, I have found you a job here working for the Secretary of the Navy, and please come home.
And you can write all you want, but you've got this full-time job here. And Irving Says no. He says, I'm going to stay here and I'm going to work on my book that I've already got. And it's sort of all or nothing for him. It's a gigantic decision that this young man makes.
And it's like it's sort of a turning point in American literature. What if Irving had gone back home and taken the regular job? Would he have started writing as much? Because nothing really drove Irving to the pen as much as poverty. Irving was not one of these writers who wrote Because he can't not write.
I know a lot of fiction writers say, I write because I can't not write. Irving is not that way at all. Irving likes preparing to write. Irving loves doing his research if he's writing nonfiction, but doesn't like to necessarily start the writing. The writing for him is the hardest part, the misery.
He is not compelled to sit down and let the words come out of the pen.
So nothing really propels him toward writing like financial need, which he definitely has now that he's in Liverpool. But he's got this series of short stories he's working on, and he comes across Sir Walter Scott. Irving is one of these great characters in that he's sort of like Forrest Gump in a way, in that he's constantly running into famous people of the era and interacting with these hugely famous people you all know. And Sir Walter Scott is one of them. And Walter Scott is one of those people.
Irving really admires Walter Scott and kind of writes him a fan letter and gets invited out to visit Scott at his home up in Scotland and spends, you know, spends a weekend, a really remarkable weekend with him, walking the property and talking. And Scott really encourages him and also does something really important. He says, let me send you to my literary agent and publisher, John Murray in England, who was sort of the powerhouse publisher in England at the time. And Murray's the one who agrees to publish Irving's sketchbook. And the sketchbook is a series of about 35 short stories that he publishes periodically.
I think it's published in seven parts over the span of almost a year in 1819. published in you know like a short periodical form that eventually gets compiled After it was collected, the story that opens it is Rip Van Winkle. The story that closes it is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
So we sort of have the bookends on it, and then nobody can remember the other 33 stories in between. There's a lot of really great stuff in there. There's a really great series of Christmas stories in there. And Irving kind of invented the American, what we would consider the American version of Christmas, which we thought was the old English version of Christmas, but Irving kind of made all that up. If the American colonies, at one point, when the nation's young, even before we're a country, Christmas is banned.
By a lot of the colonial governors, because it was an excuse for people to get drunk and get in these big fights and beat each other up. There's a remnant of that, I think, in the Christmas Carol, We Wish You a Merry Christmas. One of the verses is: You're standing outside, and they say, Now bring us some figgy pudding, and we won't go until we get some. I mean, that was you, you would have these drunken people stand outside of houses, and they'd be singing with their arms around each other and say, Now bring us some food. If you don't bring us some food, we're gonna drag you out of the house and eat you up, which actually did happen.
So the clinic group said, That's it. Everyone out of the pool, we are canceling Christmas.
So Irving bundles together five short stories that he titled Old Christmas. And it's about his narrator who is alone at Christmas time and is invited by a friend of his to ride out to the countryside to Bracebridge Hall and observe the way Squire Bracebridge celebrates the old-fashioned English Christmas. And Irving starts telling the reader about all these traditions that Squire Bracebridge is celebrating. It's Yule logs burning. And it's eggnog, and it's tons and tons of food out 24/7 for anybody to eat at any time.
It's children waking up early and waking up the adults. And it's mistletoe, and it's people singing songs, and it's people riding in sleighs, and it's and it's. Hillsides glistening under snow, and sort of everything we associate with Christmas. And Irving Has his narrator sit through these wonderful settings of these wonderful dinners and watching Squire Bracebridge sitting at the head of the table and regaling people with stories of the old days and how this is old Christmas and this is the way they've always done Christmas. And at one point, somebody literally turns to the reader.
and lays their finger aside their nose and Back in Irving's day, that means we all know that this isn't true, right? I mean, we're all in on this joke, right? Irving's nodding directly to the reader saying, This isn't really the way it was, but I'm telling you it is. None of this is real. None of this really happened the way Irving says it happens.
Christmas was not really the big glamorous center of the TID year, for sure, because it was an excuse for bad behavior. Irving is sort of rescuing Christmas and giving it back to us, neatly tied up in this package called Old Christmas, which didn't really exist the way Irving said it did. But it's such a great story. It's such a great vision of Christmas. You want to be in Bracebridge Hall.
You want to wake up in this old English country manner to experience this kind of old Christmas, which is what Irving calls this section old Christmas. That doesn't really exist until Irving creates it. even Irving letting the reader know, you're in on the joke here, right? American readers really didn't care.
So Irving's place is he sort of influences us whether we really know it or not. He's sort of in our American Literary DNA. Mm. And you've been listening to Brian J. Jones, author of Washington Irving, an American original, and what an original he was.
I mean, what we learn here about Christmas, him essentially creating the modern American Christmas story. He creates it, he makes it up. He creates this old Christmas that never existed so that we could have the Christmas we know today. And by the way, this is the power of art. This is the power of the original mind.
I love the part about just meeting Sir Walter Scott and the next thing you know, getting a publishing deal because, well, he was mingling at parties rather than mingling at museums and staring at the artifacts of old Europe. When we come back, this remarkable story, the story of Washington Irving, an American original, here on Our American Stories. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. Uh Life gets messy. Spills, stains, head accidents, and kid chaos. But with Anibay, cleaning up is easy.
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Sofas start at just $699. Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washable sofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. This is Jana Kramer from Windown with Jana Kramer.
Every Mother's Day, I tell myself I'm going to be more thoughtful than flowers because flowers are beautiful, but they don't last. In my house, everyone always ends up in the kitchen: friends, family, the kids. And I love having things around that spark conversation and feel special. That's why I love the Lennox Spice Village, and your mom will too. It's a set of 24 hand-painted little houses that are actually spice jars.
And I swear, people notice it the second they walk in. It's charming, it's nostalgic, and it somehow makes even everyday cooking feel a little more fun. And here's the best part: it actually gets used every day. Whether you're starting the full set or helping her complete one she's loved for years, there's a whole world of Spice Village to explore. This Mother's Day, give her something she'll treasure long after the card is put away.
Trust me, once you see it, you'll want one too. Find the full collection at lennox.com/slash spice village. Your social media feed delivers plenty of advice, but it doesn't know you. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't give physical exams or order tests.
Doctors do. At the American Medical Association, we believe the best care starts with a real conversation with someone who understands the science and your unique health.
So stay curious, ask questions, but when it's time to make decisions, make them with a doctor. Learn more at amahealthvershype.org. That's amahealthvshype.org. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Washington Irving and how he became America's first. literary celebrity.
Here's Brian J. Jones with more of the story.
So, this book, as it's coming out in installments, it just, it makes Irving an overnight sensation. He's almost like Lord Byron. He says he woke up in the morning and found himself famous. And they're fascinated by him in England because this is at a time when, you know, remember there's this whole thing between the United States and Britain where, you know, Jefferson at one point was trying to show people that like our flora and fauna weren't inferior and like our rabbits are probably bigger than your rabbits are. And they were fascinated by the idea that this American had the audacity to actually write English well.
Which Irving does. But again, it's a very American English, and that's one of the things that's really important about a book like Rip Van Winkle. Is it? authoritatively and definitely takes place in the United States. It's an American story.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow mentions real American landmarks. They're all real places. He's sort of the first person to be doing that. He's just, he is on fire, and those stories are so good.
So Irving becomes, if not the most famous man in the world, he's right up there. He's a novelty act in that he's an American who can write great English, but his book is selling both in the United States and England. It's a huge international bestseller. The other thing you have to remember, and one of the things that Irving does that's so important, is this is back in a time when if you were publishing a book in London, for example, where Irving's living, somebody could take a copy of that book and get on a boat and go over to the United States and publish it. and sell the book and you as the writer had no publishing rights to it.
People could just steal your work. And vice versa. In the United States, we could bring British books over here and publish them and not have to pay British writers. And then British writers were doing the same to us. They were bringing American books over and publishing them.
Irving understood that because at one point when he was working in England when the family business was failing, he had considered going into sort of literary piracy.
So Irving kind of knew how this system worked. But does something really smart. He holds off and waits till he sends a copy of his book over to his friends in the United States and has them publish his installments concurrently.
So they appear in the United States and in Britain at the exact same time.
So nobody can steal them. It's Irving, you know, really being innovative, really figuring out the system. American writers owe a lot to Irving these days even because he figured out copyright law and really advocated for American authors to preserve their copyrights and to fight like hell for their copyrights. And, you know, at one point, Irving was accused of overpricing his own books. And he said, look, if Americans want their own literature, they have to understand that you have to pay for it.
Which I think, again, we still hear going on today when people are like, newspapers should just be free and everything should be free on the internet. And people who produce work like this are like, if you want people to keep writing, they have to be able to earn a living for it. And Irving was really an advocate. Advocate for writers being paid for their work.
So if you're one of those struggling creatives out there who's like, people don't want to pay for my work. They want me to write for credit or exposure, but not for money. Irving's one who's like, damn it, write for money and really push for that.
So, Irving's sketchbook is just a gigantic book that sells on both sides of the ocean and makes him arguably one of the most famous men in the entire world.
So, Irving's got a hand in genuinely creating sort of the American Christmas holiday. The other thing that he creates is, you know. inadvertently this mascot for Halloween through the headless horseman. Which is this figure that we have really started to embrace as sort of the American Halloween. But Irving, you know, in writing a story like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Clearly set in the United States.
It's referencing the American Revolution and the Hessian soldiers and things, and bridges that actually existed in Sleepy Hollow. And creates this ghost story, this uniquely American ghost story. And it's, you know, it's one of those stories that I always say is. In the American DNA, as I've mentioned, because even if you've never read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I can say, Tell me what The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is about, and you can probably get it right. It's one of those stories we kind of know, whether we write or not.
Rick Van Winkle's kind of the same way as well. People know the basics of it. But Sleepy Hollow is one of those stories that like we all just sort of know. It got into us. And when you read that story today, it's clearly taking place in the fall.
You know, the dry leaves are underfoot, and pumpkins are around. But Irving really gives us sort of the first version of an American horror story set at that time of year that I think it is fair to say has sort of become the modern American version of Halloween. You know, he he is.
sort of the father of the American short story. And what's so important about him is when I say American short story, it is American short stories. They are stories that are set in the United States, and people are living and breathing Americans in those stories, which you did not see at the time. And writing in the American vernacular, which that spawns somebody 200 years later like Stephen King, somebody who's writing American horror stories set uniquely in the United States, written in a very uniquely regular American voice, you know, and Stephen King using name brands, like Irving would have done that had there been name brands at that time. He's sort of the forefather, the founder of let's regale in the American voice and let's write the way Americans speak and let's talk about American things, whether that's pop culture or sitting down for dinner.
You know, like I said, Irving, nobody writes about sitting down to dinner and drinking quite the way Washington Irving does. Coming off of the success of the sketchbook, and Irving has other successes in his life too. Probably the sketchbook is his biggest book, but History of New York's already in his repertoire, and he's valuable for that. He continues to sort of go back to the well, some would argue, including his own publisher, one too many times. He's sort of always doing these collections of short stories, something like Tales of a Traveler, he does, and Bracebridge Hall.
And then he does what he calls his Spanish sketchbook, which was Tales of the Alhambra. Irving was a huge fan of Spain and actually lived in Spain and lived in the Alhambra and did a lot of research there. Irving was a diplomat, a very good diplomat. He worked in the London Embassy, the Court of St. James, as they call it, when Martin Van Buren was there.
A fellow New Yorker, so they kind of knew each other, but like had really good political instincts.
So, Irving, you know, Irving got around. Like, Irving was apparently just a fantastic conversationalist. He was the person that you wanted to talk to at the party. Dolly Madison, when Irving was a young man and was just in New York visiting his brother in the 1810s, she adored him. He initially crashes a party at the White House when he's in town and when he's in Washington, D.C.
doesn't really have an invitation, but crashes a party at the White House and dances with Mrs. Madison and with her sisters. And they all just absolutely adore him.
So he's one of these people, you know, he's so fascinating because he's got this very public persona once he's famous that he's sort of this erudite. People really do think he's, he writes the sketchbook under another pseudonym, Jeffrey Crayon. And it's very well known that Irving is Jeffrey Crayon, by the way. He's going to make sure that that happens, that he's going to make sure that he gets credit for it. But people sort of think he's Jeffrey Crayon and that he's sort of this erudite man around town.
And Irving is definitely sort of a man about town, but he's also constantly a nervous wreck. He's always breaking out in these horrible herpetic rashes just from being nervous. He's just, he's just a, and he's constantly worrying about his money. Irving's probably the only person in history that went into a business deal with Astor and lost money. With John Jacob Astro loses money with Astro.
I mean, I don't know anybody that could have done that. Irving just was really bad with money. But he's just, he was always the guy you wanted at the parties. And shows up almost everywhere. He also, as a young man, always had a knack for showing up just as dinner was going down on the table.
But just, you know, he's just one of these people who is apparently very at ease in the company of others and especially loves being in the company of women and loves being in the company of brilliant women. He's a great conversationalist, is a great listener. He was always going to the best parties and was always invited to the best parties. all the doors flew open to him. Yeah.
And you've been listening to Brian J. Jones tell one heck of a story. You know, at the time, Europe did not take American writers seriously or American artists, I think one of their great literary critics said, but who would ever go see an American play or read an American book? Or look at an American sculpture.
Well, Washington Irving had the answer. He was the first. And writing in the American voice, not trying to mimic or replicate the European voice. And this was wise, because suddenly all of these Europeans were fascinated with this American original who wrote in a way Europeans couldn't. because they weren't American.
And of course, he didn't just give us Christmas. He ended up giving us Halloween in his own way. Who can't forget what the story of the legend of Sleepy Hollow was about? When we come back, more of the story of Washington Irving on Our American Stories. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously.
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An American original. Let's pick up. where we last left off. The only person I could come with at that time that was close to the way Irving was in his era was maybe Sinatra. Or more modern, maybe Oprah, somebody that kind of everybody knew.
They knew the name, and you know, people wanted Irving to run for governor of New York. You know, we tend to do this with famous people: we're like, you're so amazing and you're so brilliant, you need to run for public office. And Irving actually said, I would rather run mad. But people, you know, they wrote him. He got tons of fan mail.
Everybody knew who he was. Everybody wanted to be associated with him. Politicians wanted his endorsement. Writers at the time wanted Irving, this term didn't exist then, I don't think, but they wanted Irving to blurb them. People would send their books to Irving and say, please say something nice about my books, and we can publish it.
One of those people that went on bended knee to him was Edgar Allan Poe. Who sent him some short stories and said, Can you say something nice about these? I just, I can't really come up with anybody nowadays that is as famous in the same way that Irving was. Irving loved. Nightlife, he loved coffee houses, he loved conversation, he loved reading the newspapers and talking about it.
Conversation was really, really important to him, and again. It really informs the way Irving is as a writer. His books are very conversational. They're not stilted prose at all. And he's not using sort of archaic old language.
Even stuff that might have been modern at that time that was maybe lingo, Irving doesn't really lean into that kind of stuff. He does in stuff like Solomon Gundy, because that's a satirical piece of the pop culture at the time. But his other books still sound very, very modern to the modern reader, especially the American reader.
Now, some of Irving's work, people don't remember, Irving wrote one of the first biographies in the West of Muhammad. Irving was a big fan of that sort of tradition and that sort of literature and did a lot of research in the archives in the native language. He taught himself Spanish so he could research Columbus and writes one of the first American biographies of Christopher Columbus. He writes a lot of history, writes about the conquest of Grenada. He's very intrigued by Spanish history, so much so that later in life, when he returns, he spends 17 years abroad.
And when he comes back home, he hasn't been home really all that long and he's appointed ambassador to Spain. by John Tyler.
So, and again, it's one of those things, like famous people tend to get those gigs. Like, they like to nominate famous people. Presidents love having a famous person, you know, Shirley Temple going to the, you know, UN and Mercil Walker going to Morocco or whatever. You know, celebrities tend to get those gigs. But Irving really knew his stuff.
Irving knew a lot about Spanish history. And Irving goes over to Spain right in the middle of like a huge Spanish Civil War. and is sending these dispatches back to Daniel Webster, who's the Secretary of State, who has got to be just, I'm sure, champing at the bit every time the dispatches come in from Spain to read what his literary ambassador to the region is writing in these dispatches.
So, and is a really good ambassador and really does the work. Again, throws the best parties over in Spain. He's the ambassador. Everybody wants to hang out at the American ambassador's place, but he's just a fantastic ambassador, really has good political instincts. He ends up on his way back stopping back through London and helps negotiate the border, the 5440 border in the Pacific Northwest is one of the things Irving negotiated.
I mean, he wasn't even officially ambassador, but he stopped by and he's like, I can lend a hand with this and helps out with that.
So he's really, really good at his job. This is not an ambassadorship that was necessarily handed out because he was incredibly famous and good for politicians to associate with. He is genuinely good at that job. Irving late in life, even, is just he's constantly hustling. He cuts a really good deal with his publisher at that time for an author's revised edition, sort of one of the first American writers to have a big collection of his work that he, as the author, gets to go through and revise.
And this is when he touches up his original history of New York. He and his family were not big fans of Thomas Jefferson, and so there's a lot of jokes in there at Jefferson's expense. They were Burrites. They were all big, you know, Burr was the New Yorker. They were all fans of Aaron Burr.
So he hits Jefferson pretty hard in there. He took out all those jokes about Jefferson and sort of cleaned up some of the fart jokes and things like that. Stuff that makes the book really, really, really funny. Keeps touching that back up. It's how Irving's, you know, keeping the money rolling in.
But even then, he's still hustling. He ends up writing a five-volume biography of. George Washington, his namesake. In a way, it's sort of full circle for him. At the end of his life, he's writing about, you know, where his name comes from, he's writing about George Washington.
Taking the train, a relatively new invention, or at least at upstate New York, runs right by his house. Irving bought this house with this beautiful view of the Hudson and the train line immediately cut through between his house and the river. Apparently the conductors, when they were traveling upriver, they used to tell the people on the train, when we go Washington Irving's house, I'm going to blow the whistle so you'll know that Irving lives in this house and Irving got very upset about that and had to have a conversation with the train company to tell them, please stop blowing their whistle at his house. But was taking this train, this modern convenience, down to Washington, D.C., and then going down to Mount Vernon to do research in the archives of George Washington and write sort of one of the first big comprehensive biographies of George Washington, which is published within months of Irving's death.
So Irving was just working constantly from the time he was a young man to the time that he died, working really hard, working constantly. Among my many things I love about Irving, I do love the sort of Forrest Gump aspect of his existence in that not only is he interacting with all these famous people, but sort of like Forrest Gump, sometimes he doesn't even really register. He's in Paris at the time. And a good friend of his, John Howard Payne, I believe, is the guy who wrote the poem Home Sweet Home. is in London trying to sort of woo Mary Shelley.
And he's writing back to Irving and he's like, I'm not really getting anywhere with Mrs. Shelley, who's recently widowed at that time, because all she can do is talk about you. And so Mrs. Shelley, like her correspondence, she's like this schoolgirl. She's very excited because at one point she asked for a bunch of Irving's letters so she can just see his handwriting and like touch his letters and touch his handwriting and like she's just so excited about it.
And she's writing to friends talking about how their courtship is proceeding very, very slowly. And she keeps talking about the antediluvians, the dinosaurs, basically. And like by the time they get married, they're all gonna be extinct because it's just like Irving's not making his move. But Irving is really not that interested in Mary Shelley. And it's one of those things, the mind just boggles at what would have happened had they gotten together and created like this huge international literary couple, like Mary Shelley and Washington Irving, you know, just like this power couple they would have created.
But Irving's just not really interested. And where he's so funny, Is his friend saying, I'll give way. Like, you can date her. You know, you can be with Mrs. Shelley.
And she really, really, you know, she's joking about marrying you. And he sends all this correspondence to Irving. And the only thing he ever says about it, and he writes in his journals. read Mrs. Shelley's correspondence and went to bed.
And that is it. That is the courtship of Washington Irving and Mary Shelley. It's all on her side of it. He just cannot be bothered. And it's just, it's very funny on both their parts because she's very giddy and he is just not interested.
I think a lot of it, he just couldn't be bothered. He's in Paris, he's in London. I think he would have loved sitting down with her and talking with her had she been nearby, but he's not going to make a trip to London or anything like that to do it.
Okay. You know, I love his relationship with all of his other friends. He's a very, very loyal friend. And when he says goodbye to Governor Kemball, who's a very influential figure later on in his life, you know, he helped create the foundry at West Point. And, you know, one of the last meetings they ever have, they sort of walk up and down the train tracks to walk home.
It's sort of like that last scene in Stand By Me, you know, where River Phoenix fades away and Kimball kind of walks down the tracks and disappears into the dark. And Irving just bursts into tears, you know, sort of knowing it's the last he's going to see his friend. Just, you know, this incredibly loyal, very loving guy. And I just really admire the hustle more than anything else, just how this cat worked. You know, this is back in the day when you've got to carry all your manuscripts around with you in a trunk, and you've got to sit down, you've got to write by hand.
And you have to be in the right frame of mind, and there's nothing worse than staring at the blank sheet of paper. And Irving, again, who hated the task of writing. And then he's got to sit down and write it, and he's got to write it by hand. And just the sheer hustle that it took to do that and to keep going back and doing it. And at times when he knows that his family is depending on him to do it, and he's got a brother.
who's just constantly losing his money and takes all of Irving's money he earns off of one of his books and invests it in steamboats and loses all the money.
So Irving's gotta like hustle to get that money back.
So many times, you know, when Irving needs money, he has to write a book that he gets accused at one point of bookmaking for it. Which is probably fair, but Irving's doing for a living what he knows how to do. You know, if he was a carpenter at that time, he would have been out building houses and building furniture. What he knows how to do is write.
So when he needs money, he figures out how to write. Just the sheer hustle of this guy is really Inspiring and really kind of intimidating to just watch the guy constantly in motion, almost literally up till the moment he drops dead. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Madison Derricott. And a special thanks to Brian J. Jones, author of Washington Irving, an American original.
My goodness, what a story. What a storyteller. There he was, Washington Irving, the first literary celebrity of his day. And understand, there was almost no other kind except maybe an actor. There was no TV.
There was no film.
So people read newspapers, books, or they watched a singer or watched a performer. And so what he did was bring literature essentially to the common man using plain spoken English in a way that no one had done before. And I believe led straight to Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Melville II. I mean, this was American literature written by Americans in an American voice. We're no longer copying the European way.
The story of Washington Irving on our American Stories. This is Julian Edelman from Games with Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time. And one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate.
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