Author: Washington IrvingPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 532
Book Description
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent
Author: Washington IrvingPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : American essays
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Author: Washington IrvingPublisher: Orient Blackswan
ISBN: 9788125021766
Category : Catskill Mountains (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 60
Book Description
A man who sleeps for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains wakes to a much-changed world.
The Sketch-book
Author: Washington IrvingPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : American essays
Languages : en
Pages : 482
Book Description
The Widow And Her Son
Author: Washington IrvingChristmas in America
Author: Penne L. RestadPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
The manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.
An Unwritten Drama of Lord Byron
Author: Washington IrvingPeter Parley to Penrod
Author: Jacob BlanckPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Children's literature
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Book Description
Bibliography of selected American children's books, 1827-1926.
Author: Washington Irving
Author: Washington Irving
Author: George R. Goldner