There are books that, without being childish or banal, seem designed to give the reader a good time. Sketchbook (of Sir Geoffrey Crayon)The collection of stories by the American diplomat and writer Washington Irving (1783-1859) is a prime example of this phenomenon. Published by Adesiara, the volume comprises a series of tales, including the famous "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the legend of the horseman with no horse. This story, along with "Rip Van Winkle," exemplifies the cultural influence of the early Dutch—and Danish and German—colonists in the New York area. The stories gathered here are representative of early American Romanticism, which would later inspire widely known and translated authors, such as... Edgar Allan PoeBut it is also related to transcendentalism, the school of thought that links divinity with the course of nature and believes in an inherent goodness in humankind. While we cannot place Irving within a specific school of thought, nor include him in the group of Emerson or Thoreau, he was certainly part of the cultural environment in which this movement arose.