The book that first made American writing saleable in England: Rip Van Winkle asleep in the Catskills, a schoolmaster riding home from the Van Tassel farm, and between them a series of quiet English pieces on Christmas, Westminster Abbey and country churchyards. Irving published it as Geoffrey Crayon while working off his family's bankruptcy in Liverpool, and Walter Scott helped him find a publisher. Its 95 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.