Rip Van Winkle

Book Description

Washington Irving's story of a man who sleeps for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains and awakens to find a changed world has been a classic of American Literature. This deluxe gift edition carefully reproduces thity-four of Arthir Rackham's enchanting and exquisuute paintings.

Customer Reviews:

Rip Van Winkle.......2006-08-28

This story was about a man named Rip Van Winkle and he was drugged
by some Dutch ghosts. He slept for twenty years. When he woke up the
town was really different. His wife was dead and his kids were grown. He ended up living with his grown daughter and her husband.
I like this book because it was a strange story. It has some unusual things in it like a man that sleeps for twenty years and ghosts that look completely solid. I would recommend this book
to some people. I would recommend this book to grown-ups and children that are in the fourth grade and up.

Rip Van Winkle/Wake Up, Rip Van Winkle: A Classic Tale (Point of View)

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Rip Van Winkle/Wake Up, Rip Van Winkle: A Classic Tale (Point of View)
Alvin Granowsky , Alvin Grawowsky , and Washington Irving
Manufacturer: Steck-Vaughn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0811422224

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Wonderfully Lazy
Mystical Truth For The Humble, But No One Else

Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle
Washington Irving
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 048644242X

Book Description

This classic of Catskill lore, enhanced with lovely watercolors, established the reputation of Arthur Rackham, and today the images are recognized as among the artist's best works. Sure to enchant art lovers and Rackham devotees, this edition of all 51 full-page illustrations, plus Irving's complete story, will delight fantasy enthusiasts of all ages.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderfully Lazy.......2005-12-06

The character of Rip Van Winkle is like an older version of Peter Pan, overgrown and frumpy. He seeks to enjoy his life and in doing so engages in mostly childish activities. Adulthood bores him, as it should, because he excels at leisure as much as Ben Franklin stands out in industry.

Rip reads well to married people, who seem to be the ideal audience for the story. The detached approach Irving takes in describing the "henpecking wife" and "curtain lectures" is comical to married couples, husbands in particular. It is a great comfort for men in 2005 to learn that the traffic of henpecking was a one-way street then, too. :)

The character of Rip is admirable. How lucky to be free to do nothing and experience no remorse. He is harmless, and a great credit to the community in entertainment value and spontenaity. By enjoying simple things, he understands the best things in life are free, such as the view from the mountain top and pulling a fish out of the stream. He is good for conversation, non-judgmental, agreeable, and rather kind. Strange, but it seems he could be a fine pastor or priest.

The comedy of this story seems to be the escape from his hellish home life. Some have described heaven as a place of rest, away from the burdens of the world. So Rip, on the mountaintop, taking in a beautiful sight, after a day of shooting squirrels, has some delicious liquor, and falls asleep until two tyrants are deposed; his wife and King George.

Mystical Truth For The Humble, But No One Else.......2005-05-23

Washington Irving's 'Rip Van Winkle' originally appeared in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819) alongside another evocative piece of Americana, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' a wondrous story equally set in Irving's beloved Hudson River Valley. Though not as multilayered as its longer and slightly more well known fellow, 'Rip Van Winkle' also has long roots in Old World folklore, which is appropriate, since The Sketch Book was the first book by an American writer to be taken seriously by the European audiences that then set the standard in the West. Like the earlier A Knickerbocker's History of New York (1809), 'Rip Van Winkle' is playfully attributed to Dutch antiquarian "Diedrich Knickerbocker," the most famous and certainly the most charming of several personae Irving adopted as an author.

Written in simple but gorgeously visionary language, 'Rip Van Winkle' is the story of the lazy but warm spirited farmer, who, in an effort to escape the "petticoat despotism" of his "termagant" wife, flees for an afternoon's hunting in the lonely, autumnal Catskill Mountains. Accompanied only by Wolf, his faithful but equally harassed dog, Rip is surprised when he notices an odd figure approaching through the wilderness and calling out his name. The "short, square built old fellow with thick bushy hair and a grizzled beard" is carrying a "stout keg," and gestures to Van Winkle to assist him with his burden.

Taking up the "flagon," Rip hesitantly follows the little man into an isolated ravine, and thus steps unknowingly into fairyland; there he finds himself confronted by a solemn and outlandishly dressed party of dwarfs playing at ninepins. Bewildered, Rip pours out the beverage for the assemblage, but can't resist taking a drink himself. Awaking on the mountainside, Van Winkle, finding Wolf gone and a badly rusted gun at his side, returns to town, where he discovers his home in ruins, his wife dead, his children grown to adulthood, the land of his birth now an independent nation freed from the yoke of the British, and himself a stranger to the villagers, who stare at his tattered clothing and exceptionally long facial hair. After making bewildered inquiries, he comes to accept that twenty years have passed.

As a humble, good hearted, and mild tempered dreamer, Rip is an archetypal fairytale hero, though the only dragon slain is Dame Van Winkle, and she accidentally, by the passage of time itself. Like kindred spirit Ichabod Crane, Rip is not an absolute novice when it comes to the fantastic, for he has enjoyed telling the village children who love him "long stories about ghosts, witches, and Indians."

As in traditional Celtic fairy lore, in which eating or drinking while visiting fairyland is often punished with permanent residency there, Rip had made the honest mistake of partaking of fairy foodstuffs, and thus pays an unintended price for doing so. For Celtic fairy lore also featured multiple variations on the theme of fairy time; one minute of perceived human time might be seven years of fairy time, and a man spending a happy week dancing in fairyland might discover that one hundred years or more has past on earth upon his return. Whether dwarfs, elves, boggarts, or fairies, Irving's little people are first cousins to many of the mythological beings of European mythology. Interestingly, like the literally "solitary" fairies of Ireland and Scotland, who were brusque of manner at best and never seen in groups (as were the far more gregarious "trooping" fairies), the little men Rip holds audience with "maintain the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence," and thus represent "the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed."

But Irving, who deftly places his story in the historical setting of pre-Revolutionary America, also shrewdly offers his audience other interpretations for Van Winkle's strange mountain encounter. Though narrator Diedrich Knickerbocker acknowledges early that the Catskills are "fairy mountains," one character, sage Peter Vanderdonk, explains that it was the dead "Hendrick Hudson" himself, who returns with his crew every twenty years "to keep a guardian eye on the river," whom Rip encountered, while the postscript indeterminably discusses a variety of Indian spirits, including the Manitou, who haunt the region. One fact entirely overlooked by scholars everywhere is that American literature was born in the daimonic, a tradition begun by Irving but enthusiastically continued by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe.

Like most of Irving's work, at present Rip Van Winkle is a grossly underappreciated piece of pure Americana; certainly American literature could have gotten off to a much worst beginning than it did than with its gallant, optimistic, and uncynical founder. For Rip, despite the precariousness of his experience, learns to accept his fate and settles into a comfortable old age as a venerated member of his community. Not that very long ago, there was a time in America when, taking a direct cue from the story itself, some of America's young schoolchildren were fancifully taught that thunder was not the result of lightning, but merely the echo of the elves' occasional game of mountain bowling.

This definitive edition, first published in 1905, features over fifty genuinely "mesmerizing" though somber watercolor illustrations by British master Arthur Rackham, which perfectly suit Irving's text and will captivate both adults and children alike.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle (Great Illustrated Classics)

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Mr. Rogers meets Saw 3
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Reflections of the Old World Through Washington Irving's Tales
headless horseman
headless horseman

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle (Great Illustrated Classics)
Washington Irving , and Jack Kelly
Manufacturer: Abdo Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1577658191

Book Description

Children, parents, and educators for more than a decade have trusted Troll Illustrated Classics. Carefully abridged and beautifully illustrated, these affordably priced paperbacks now feature contemporary new covers that bring alive the best-loved classics for a new generation of readers.

Download Description

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Featured is the terrifying headless horseman, the gawky Ichabod Crane and the peerless Katerina.

Customer Reviews:

Mr. Rogers meets Saw 3.......2007-06-03

I will keep this quick because it was already a waste of time to read this book. They used these horrible drawing for the book that look like my little brother did them. Basically they messed up the story and made it for kids. They made it a childrens book, if that is what your looking for then it is good.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.......2007-04-26

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
By: Washington Irving
Review by Tristan
Did you ever hear of the headless horseman? If you didn't, now you will.
Ichabod Crane is a thin, odd-looking school teacher of Sleepy Hollow. He likes Katrina Van Tassel and also her father's farm. Katrina Van Tassel is a pretty, young flitter of sleepy hollow. Her father, Baltus Van Tassel, is a wealthy man who has a harvest feast. Ichabod borrows Gun Powder ,a horse, to get to the feast. Ichabod is competing for Katrina. His nemeses Brom Bones, the town's dare devil.
So, one day when he just borrowed Gun Powder and he fell asleep in Sleepy Hollow's little valley. Some people say it was curse by a German doctor or by an Indian Chief the wizard of his tribe who held his Pow-Wows there. So he falls asleep and wakes up face to face with the HEADLESS HORSEMAN. Some people say he's a ghost of a cavalry revolutionary war officer and he got his head shot off. Does Ichabod live or die?
If you like to read scary books this is for you, but if you like Elmo it's

Reflections of the Old World Through Washington Irving's Tales.......2006-10-31

Indeed, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" are the capstone stories to THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW AND OTHER STORIES, OR THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. However, it is the other 32 essays and short stories that are the jewel to the Modern Library Classics'edition of Washington Irving's most widely read literary tales. Through the psyeudonyms of Diedrich Knickenbacker and Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, Irving produced his most revered works, HISTORY OF NEW YORK AND SKETCH BOOK, which both reflect on the state of early nineteenth century America -- 40 or more years after the American Revolution and soon after the War of 1812, and later the dawn of the Industrial Age. Irving's stories have the same flair of Charles Dickens's, but with a nostalgic quality.

The best part of the book is the humor and observations that Irving wrote from both sides of the Atlantic. His flowing and quite descriptive prose livens his stories, especially the haunting Halloween classic "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." "Rip Van Winkle" has a bit of Jeffersonian thought about idleness. But addition to these tales, Irvings invites all to share a little holiday fair as he takes readers into the fun and folly of an Old English Christmas with five delightful stories: "Christmas," "The Stage Coach," "Christmas Eve," "Christmas Day," and "Christmas Dinner," which all echoes Dickens in mind. However, these were written years before "A Christmas Carol."

Beyond the folklore tales that resonate the Old World, Irving also writes about Native Americans. He tells the story of the Indian in "Traits of Indian Character" and "Philip of Pokanoket"; the latter is the tale of the legendary figure King Philip. The last passage of "Philip" definitely strikes an ironic chord, "...he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest - without pity eye to weep his fall, or a friendly hand to record his struggle" (266).

Washington Irving's THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW AND OTHER STORIES are filled with a treasure trove of American literature. All the stories are suitable reading for any season, or merely for the pleasure of reading a collection of stories that reflect on a historical past.

headless horseman.......2006-05-23

Ichabod meets a lovely girl named Katrina but she used him to make Brom Bones mad and then Ichabod leaves in sorrow and then the Headless Horse Man throws a pumpkin at Ichabod's head and then Ichabod is never seen again.
People who shouldn't read this are the people who can get scared very easily.

headless horseman.......2006-05-23

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An Unedited, Poorly Scanned Copy

The Sketch Book
Washington Irving
Manufacturer: Adamant Media Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

This delightful selection of stories and essays was written by Irving under the pseudonym "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.," and was popular both in America and abroad. In Rip Van Winkle, the title character and Catskill native falls asleep before the American Revolution and awakes 20 years later in the newly formed nation, which seems, in many ways, similar to the colonies of old. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow tells of self-satisfied schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, who is chased out of Sleepy Hollow (and Katrina Van Tassel\'s embraces) by the headless horseman - and is now rumored to have become a politician. Essay selections focus largely on Irving\'s observations of England from an American perspective.

Customer Reviews:

An Unedited, Poorly Scanned Copy.......2007-09-03

It is incredible that this book has not only made it to print but is actually advertised and sold by Amazon. It appears to have been copied by scanning and then printed, almost unedited, from the product of that copy method. Anyone in the least familiar with the scanning process knows that strange characters appear and words are often distorted and separated in an unusual manner. Nothing was done to "clean up" the text with the original in view. It is an "Elibron Classic" and published in 2006. Were it not that I need the text for a course I am enrolled it, I would have returned it summarily for a refund. Whole sentences are incomplete, strange and unusual words and markings appear [and they are not merely archaic words from a forgotten vocabulary]. It is a frustrating read, but with a little imagination the original elegance of Washington Irving's prose can be gleamed.

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Rip Van Winkle: Level 1
Washington Irving
Manufacturer: Edcon Pub Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Rip Van Winkle (a Read-Along Radio Drama literature unit)

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Rip Van Winkle (a Read-Along Radio Drama literature unit)

Manufacturer: Balance Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Ring-bound
ASIN: 1878298380

Product Description

Before the Revolutionary War, there lived a simple good natured fellow by the name of Rip Van Winkle, who would take his rifle and his dog, Wolf, on long walks through the forests. In a long walk of this kind, Rip climbed to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains and rested under a giant tree. As Rip was about to return home, he heard a voice calling his name. Then he saw a stranger struggling to carry a keg of liquor. Rip hurried to help the stranger, and as they passed through an opening Rip saw a bunch of men playing nine-pins. Rip helped serve the liquor to the men, and found time to drink some himself until finally his head dropped and he slept. When he awoke, Rip found himself on the green knoll from which he had first seen the old man of the glen. His joints were very stiff, and he assumed that was because he had been sleeping on the hard ground. Upon his return to the village, he discovered that everything had changed: his beard had grown a foot long. His house been lived in for years. He saw no one he knew, and even his old hangout, the Village Inn, was gone. After a great deal of confusion, Rip finally discovered that he had slept not just a few hours, but twenty years. ----- READ-ALONG RADIO DRAMA KITS are literature units for the reading and language arts classroom. The kit includes: A CD recording (a reading of the rewritten story with sound effects); A word-for-word read-along script; Duplication rights for word-for-word script and student activity sheets; Ready-to-use student activity sheets (Cloze Activity, Sequence Activity, Vocabulary Activities, Literal Comprehension Activity, Listening Skills Activity, Crossword Puzzles, A list of Writing/ Discussion Questions); A literary terms study packet; Teaching suggestions w/answer keys; Strategies for teaching read-along in the secondary classroom; A sample lesson plan; Using Read-Along Radio Dramas. (Recommended for grades 5 through adult. CD recording length 37 min.)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van Winkle: Library Edition (Unabridged Classics in Audio: Our American Heritage)

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van Winkle: Library Edition (Unabridged Classics in Audio: Our American Heritage)
Washington Irving
Manufacturer: In Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 1584722797

Rip Van Winkle (Rabbit Ears-a Classic Tale)

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Rip Van Winkle (Rabbit Ears-a Classic Tale)
Washington Irving
Manufacturer: Spotlight
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1591977703

Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories: And Other Stories (Puffin Classics - the Essential Collection)

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Rip Van Winkle
Classic folk tales from the father of American literature.

Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories: And Other Stories (Puffin Classics - the Essential Collection)
Washington Irving
Manufacturer: Puffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140367713

Customer Reviews:

Rip Van Winkle.......2003-05-15

Rip Van Winkle is a story of an regular man that came in contact with some irregular people that would change his life forever. It all started out one day when Rip decided to go hunting with his dog. Up to this point in his search for freedom, he had lived a sleepy and uneventfull life with two kids and a wife. He was always trying to get out of work and find a way out of doing everything. One day he gets fed up with his life and finds himself out in the woods hunting;There he gets asked by a strange man to carry a keg to a nine pin party. Also during this party he ends up getting drunk and finds himself dosing off to sleep. When he finally wakes up he has a long white beard and twenty years older! He had fallen asleep for twenty years and found that he was now old, grey and still alive. At this point in the story he goes back to the village where he had lived for so long and finds that his wife and friends had all passed away and had left him. He also finds that his daughter got married and was raising a family. She sees him one day and recognizes him to be the man that was once her father. At this point in Rip's life, all he wants to do is settle down and he is satisified to become the village story teller to all who would hear his tales. This is a tale of suspense and just plain old good reading for all ages. It was written many years ago and could speak to all people of all ages and races. I would recomend this book to anyone from my Grandfather to the Queen of England.

Classic folk tales from the father of American literature........2001-07-03

Washington Irving's (1783-1859) claim to fame is as a pioneer of American fiction, and he is widely recognized as the "father of American literature." The book that especially propelled him to fame was "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." which contained his two most famous fantasy stories - "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - both of which are contained in this collection.

But it is not merely his ground-breaking efforts that garnered him literary recognition, because Irving's stories are at the same time characterized by charming and colourful prose befitting a skilled writer. The stories in this collection (the "Puffin Classics" series) are an excellent sampling of his craft. It's not always easy reading - in fact many of these stories would be too dense even for older children. His vocabulary is extensive, and sentences structure verbose and lengthy - a style rather unlike that employed by contemporary writers. But despite this, Irving demonstrates a wonderful command of the English language, and has the ability to create a vivid picture of his setting, characters and events. Particularly delightful is the attention he devotes to describing his characters. And yet his stories are far from mere character portraits - they are exciting and enchanting tales that make the reader eager to find out the outcome.

"Rip Van Winkle" has gained the status of a classic, and is familiar to most children, but likely few have read Irving's original. It breathes an authenticity and air not found in the contemporary abridged versions of the story. Irving presents his tale as the alleged discovered manuscript (complete with postscript) of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker. The delightful story of Rip Van Winkle - who fell asleep in the Catskill mountains after drinking a mysterious brew acquired from some strange little men, and then awoke 20 years later - will continue to please readers old and new. In the course of the story, Irving makes a profound social comment about the changes happening in his America. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is renowned for its chilling tale of the Headless Horseman, and is a Halloween favorite. Actually, however, it is much more than that. It is not so much a spooky tale of a legendary village ghost as it is a colourful tale about two rival suitors. Ichabod Crane is a simple school teacher who is in love with Katrina Van Tassel, and equally in love with the estates of her father, a wealthy Dutch farmer. His counter-part is the powerful local hero Bram Bones, whose affections for Katrina mirror those of Ichabod Crane, and who is determined to put an end to the affections of underdog Crane by a mysterious and elaborate trickery. As is evident also in his other stories, it is particularly fascinating how Irving exploits the supernatural superstitions of the popular mind to create a sense of mystery and fear, but himself gives a naturalist explanation that rises above such popular notions by explaining the supernatural with natural events.

Though lesser known, the other three stories in the "Puffin Classics" collection are equally enjoyable. "The Spectre Bridegroom" is one of the most fascinating tales in the collection. A young man is mistaken for a bridegroom and received into the castle of a wealthy baron as the husband of the baron's daughter. But before the marriage can be consummated, the bridegroom dashes off, and the baron's family hears shortly afterwards that he's been killed. But then who appears again except the bridegroom - or is it his ghost? - to steal his bride and vanish once more! In the end, it is a satisfying tale more of brilliant scheming than of ghosts - although the fearful superstitions of the general public about the supernatural play an important role in the effective execution of these schemes. "The Pride of the Village" is the tragic tale of a young lady whose heart pines in love for an army officer who has deserted her, only to die at his feet when he returns. "Mountjoy" is a wonderful study of an apparently incurable romantic, described by Irving as a "Castle-Builder". When Mr. Mountjoy discovers a delicate footprint on a sandy shore, his passion for metaphysics, creativity and romance leads him to dream up an imaginary beautiful young maiden, and he promptly fall passionately in love with the nymph of his dreams. The air castle he builds and its accompanying romanticism is crushed numerous times, even drowned, but each time is renewed and revived, just when it seems that "the cobweb romance I had been spinning" would be demolished completely. In the end Mr. Mountjoy meets the girl of his dreams, only to discover that his air castles need to be reshaped once more, and in the end, destroyed completely.

Readers used to the easy diet of modern fiction will find the pioneering work of Washington Irving rather tough to chew on. But those who delight in tasting words, biting on imaginative characters and settings, with a few sips of suspense and supernatural in the process, will discover that Washington Irving's stories are just the literary serving they are renowned to be: a classic. Irving won't please all children of the modern era. But children of literature who have acquired a fine literary taste will find that despite the heightened language of his time, Irving is still digestible and enjoyable.

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