Knickerbocker's History of New York

About this book

In 1809, newspapers in New York printed notices about an elderly gentleman, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who had disappeared from his hotel, leaving behind a strange manuscript. Soon the manuscript appeared: a comic history of New York from the creation of the world to the end of Dutch rule, with its pompous Dutch governors, the sleepy Wouter Van Twiller, William the Testy and the fiery, one-legged Peter Stuyvesant, who finally surrendered New Amsterdam to the English in 1664.

Context and significance

The whole affair was a hoax by the young Washington Irving, and the book was the first great work of American comic literature; 'Knickerbocker' became a nickname for New Yorkers, and the New York Knicks basketball team takes its name from it. Read Irving's Rip Van Winkle and The Alhambra.

About the author