A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, Volume 1; Being the Only Authentic History of the

by Diedrich Knickerbocker (Pseudonym), Washington Irving

Title: A History of New York, From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty: Being the Only Authentic History of the Times That Ever Hath Been or Ever Will Be Published Volume: 1 Publisher: New York: G. P. Putnam Publication date: 1865 Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.

Genres: History

106 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 1809

About the author

Diedrich Knickerbocker is a pen name used by Washington Irving to publish his first satirical work A History of New York.

Reviews

[Rossdavidh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is how "A History of New York", written by Washington Irving under the pseudonym of Diedrich Knickerbocker, published in 1809, opens:

"NOTICES WHICH APPEARED IN THE NEWSPAPERS PREVIOUS TO THE PUBLICATION OF THIS WORK.
From the Evening Post of October 26, 1809.
DISTRESSING
Left his lodgings some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, and information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received."

That's right, the first thing Irving tells us about the author of this book is that he has gone missing, and is perhaps not quite right in the head. There follow several pages concerning the disappearance of said author, the document left in his hotel room, the eventual sale of the document to publisher Inskeep & Bradford to meet his unpaid tab, the author's later discovery in "a small Dutch village on the banks of the Hudson", a short history of the rest of the elderly author's life after discovering that his book had been published without his knowledge (he was not done with it), and his eventual death, including some details of his will. Then, eventually, we begin with Chapter 1, and start talking about the early history of New York, in the narrative voice of Knickerbocker.

Needless to say, this is not actually intended to be read as a history. It is riffing on history, to be sure, but is primarily a comedy. What was even more surprising to me was its extraordinarily ironic, sarcastic, and almost postmodern tone, the (actual, flesh and blood) author often indicating the exact opposite beliefs through the comically un-selfaware narration of his alter ego, Diedrich Knickerbocker. I should have known that people over 200 years ago were fully as capable of being so "meta", but to be honest I had somehow the impression that this was more a late-20th and early-21st century sort of thing.

I only occasionally laughed out loud, I admit, but I believe I did read nearly the entire thing with a smirk or a grin on my face. It is not the sort of book one should expect to make you better informed about history, not directly. It did send me to the internet occasionally out of curiousity as to what had actually happened during the reigns of Wouter the Doubter, William the Testy, or Peter the Headstrong. There was often some rough resemblance to the events in Irving's "History", and who knows, in some cases perhaps he comes closer to an honest accounting of events than one would find in a typical history book. From the chapter in which the English and Dutch attempt to make a treaty regarding which portions of New York belong to each:

"A treaty, or, to speak more correctly, a negotiation, therefore, according to the acceptation of experienced statesmen learned in these matters, is no longer an attempt to accommodate differences, to ascertain rights, and to establish an equitable exchange of kind offices; but a contest of skill between two powers, which shall overreach and take in the other. It is a cunning endeavor to obtain by peaceful manoeuvre, and the chicanery of cabinets, those advantages which a nation would otherwise have wrested by force of arms, in the same manners as a conscientious highwayman reforms and becomes a quiet and praiseworthy citizen contenting himself with cheating his neighbor out of that property he would formerly have seized with open violence."

It is my third book by Washington Irving, and the third which I have enjoyed. It is a wonder I was not exposed to any of it as a student. I believe I may have to seek out more of it.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts very funny, but I tired of the humor eventually.