Washington Irving: An American Original
“. . . [a] charming biography … [of] one of America’s greatest writers, bon vivants and literary showmen.”
“. . . the definitive Irving biography for the current generation . . . In more ways than one, Irving remains a superstar — one that Brian Jay Jones does proud.”
“. . . a fine biography — engaging, clearly written and well researched, full of material that is likely to be unfamiliar to most modern readers . . . a crisply written account.”
Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World
“. . . a rich portrait of a man growing in literary prowess in step with his young country’s own development. . . . an authoritative biography.”
Associated Press
“Jones’ briskly written and comprehensive biography of this unjustly neglected figure is a pleasure to read and belongs in the library of any serious student of the United States’ engagement with the world.”
“Washington Irving is conventionally portrayed as the first professional American author. His shrewdness in gauging his readership, his firm dealings with publishers, his advocacy of copyright, all reinforce this portrayal. Mr. Jones brings new and fresh evidence to demonstrate just how shrewd and astute Irving could be, for all his apparent nonchalance.”
“Jones sheds the sharp light of modern scholarship on this traditionally hallowed but imperfectly known man to reveal a complex and sympathetic human being. Leaving literary criticism to academics, Jones instead focuses on Irving . . . [S]et against an early American cultural and political world full of tantalizingly unfamiliar historical figures, a warm and patient, grieving and theatrical, generous and loving Irving takes on a distinctly human form. . . this most recent portrait of the startlingly flawed and conflicted literary figure is recommended….”
“[Jones's] breezy approach suits his agreeable subject. . . . A solid introduction to an interesting life.”
Kirkus Reviews
“What illuminates Washington Irving’s life so superbly is Brian Jay Jones’s familiarity with the material and his easy and open style . . . Jones’s seamless narrative flow incorporates Irving’s own words, bringing out the best in both authors . . . a marvelous and enduring portrayal of a complex and fascinating American original.”
“Here’s the difference between a Kitty Kelley biography and one by a researcher such as Brian Jay Jones. Kelley takes innuendo and presents it as fact. Jones takes facts and leaves it up to the reader to find the innuendo. . . [Washington Irving's] perspective on the infancy and preteen years of the United States is unmatched. Jones does him justice, without being a snoop.”
New Jersey Star-Ledger
“Required Reading.”
“Some of the most interesting sections describe Irving’s interactions with other writers, like Poe and Dickens. Irving emerges as a man with a deep need for praise and affirmation . . . [Jones] gives him a great deal of credit for being the first American to figure out how to make a living as an author.”
Publisher’s Weekly
“Washington Irving—first in American letters, first in the hearts of his readers, but surprisingly absent from the biography shelf. Mr. Jones has addressed this absence by producing a fair and well-written account of one of the most important, yet humble, figures in our nation’s literary history. Irving must have been grand company. Mr. Jones’s book is grand company.”
Eric Burns
Author of Valor, Virtue & Vanity and Infamous Scribblers
“How wonderful to have a biography of Washington Irving that sparkles as brightly as the original. This seminal author deserves to be remembered, and even better, understood. Thanks to Brian Jay Jones, we can now rub the sleep out of our eyes, slip out of our Rip Van Winkle slumber, and celebrate a great American original.”
Ted Widmer
Author of Ark of the Liberties and Martin Van Buren
Director, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
“Behind Washington Irving’s carefully cultivated public persona stood a complex man. In his intriguing character study of Irving, Brian Jones has put a personal face on one of America’s first internationally recognized writers and celebrities. Irving the Satirist would have enjoyed the style of this engaging read – chatty, charming, and irreverent!”
Kathleen Eagen Johnson,
Curator, Historic Hudson Valley
“A multifaceted biography written with grace, wit, and empathy . . . Irving has often puzzled his biographers. In Jones’s full-length portrait, he finally emerges in his full complexity. Rarely has an author’s life been told with such awareness of what it really means to produce books for an audience.”
Christoph Irmscher
Author of The Poetics of Natural History, Longfellow Redux,
and Public Poet, Private Man
“In this gracefully written narrative of America’s first successful and popular author, Brian Jay Jones has given us a portrait of an American original . . . In this succinct and clear analysis of Irving’s literary legacy, Jones persuasively argues that the creator of Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow deserves his rightful place as an American cultural icon who oversaw the emergence of a distinctly American literature.”
Edward P. Crapol
Author of John Tyler: The Accidental President
Pullen Professor, Emeritus, College of William and Mary
“Jones really captures the many sides of this American Renaissance man who did everything from reinventing the prose short story, to popularizing the travel narrative, to giving us the phrase, “the almighty dollar” . . . Mr. Jones knows how make a narrative flow much like his subject.”
