Rip Van Winkle + the Devil and Tom Walker (Plaintales Classics)

Lazy Rip Van Winkle ?would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound,” much to the dismay of his wife. After an afternoon in the Catskill Mountains ends in an enchanted, twenty-year sleep, Rip discovers that his children have grown up without him. He’s even slept through the American Revolutionary War! But does he learn his lesson? From nineteenth-century author Washington Irving come two cautionary tales that will broaden your vocabulary and challenge you to think.

Washington Irving, named for General George Washington, was born in New York City in 1783, just as Americans learned that a British ceasefire would end the Revolutionary War. Irving later honored his namesake by writing a five-volume biography of the first U.S. president. But before that, Irving was America’s first truly best-selling author, and possibly the first American man to make a living entirely with his writing. Some also consider him the first American master of the short story. Irving didn’t write specifically for children, but he told adventuresome, mystical yarns that were accessible to everyone, the young included.