![]() Since 1820 virtually no American has been able to write in ignorance of "Rip Van Winkle." Irving's story sowed literary seed reaped in future decades, for the pattern of Rip's tall tale swallowed whole by the overeducated, outsider Knickerbocker helped ground frontier humor, a literary mode that began to flourish in the 1830s and that reached a climax in Rip's illegitimate offspring, Huckleberry Finn. ![]() Never has a single short story been more responsible for establishing a rising culture's literary respectability. Historically, "Rip Van Winkle" sparked the success of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., which assured the reputation of Irving and for the first time in history made American literature worthy of international esteem. Though the text is routinely misread-books seldom reprint the story as Washington Irving wrote it-and though the story's comic tone tends to deflect serious criticism, it remains one of the world's great short stories, a peer of Gogol's "The Overcoat" and Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." ![]() "Rip Van Winkle" may be the most important short story ever written. ![]()
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