Scott's influence on an American icon

Published on Monday 24 July 2006 12:56

HE WAS arguably America's greatest short-story teller, satirist and wit. The son of an Orkney sailor who settled in the New World, he went on to become the first American writer to achieve international fame and that country’s first true "literary artist".

Washington Irving is best remembered for the story of Rip Van Winkle, the man who slept for 20 years, and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow - both set in upstate New York. He also travelled widely in Europe and worked for several years at the US Embassy in Madrid then, along with future US president Martin Van Buren, at the American Legation in London.

Irving was a handsome bon viveur and mixed freely with literary giants like Charles Dickens, Henry Longfellow and Mary Shelley, with whom he had a romantic liaison. But his most important and enduring friendship was with one of Scotland's great men of letters - a friendship which almost led to Irving becoming one of the leading lights among the literati of 18th-century Edinburgh.

As a young and witty writer in New York, Irving published newspaper articles under the bizarre pen-name of Dietrich Knickerbocker. On a visit to the UK as a partner in the family hardware business, he had been entertained by Walter Scott at his home at Abbotsford, near Kelso. Scott was a fan of Irving's work and was to be of great influence in aiding his writing career.

But Scott's attempt to lure the American writer to the Scottish capital - which Irving recounts in early editions of his most famous publication, The Sketch Book - was an invitation he refused. Had he accepted it would have been momentous and Irving's impact on Scottish literature immense.

Irving, who lived from 1783 to 1859, turned to Scott after the collapse of the family business forced him to try to earn a living from writing. The Sketch Book - which contained both the Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow tales - had been published in America but Irving hoped it might appeal to a European audience. He sent copies of the book along with a letter to Scott asking if he could approach Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable on his behalf.

He also told Scott that, since they had met, he had suffered a downturn in fortune and that the success of the book was "all-important". Irving was delighted to receive a quick and encouraging reply from Scott, who said he would speak with Constable.

What Scott wrote next is told in Irving's words in the preface of some editions of his Sketch Book.

"The hint about a reverse of fortune had struck the quick apprehension of Scott and, with that practical and efficient goodwill that belonged to his nature, he had already devised a way of aiding me. A weekly periodical, he went on to inform me, was about to be set up in Edinburgh, supported by the most respectable talents, and amply furnished with all the necessary information.

"The appointment of editor, for which ample funds were provided, would be five hundred pounds sterling a year, with the reasonable prospect of further advantages. This situation, being apparently at his disposal, he frankly offered to me.

"The work, however, he intimated, was to have somewhat of a political bearing and he expressed an apprehension that the tone it was desired to adopt might not suit me. 'Yet I risk the question,' added he, 'because I know no man so well qualified for this important task and perhaps because it will necessarily bring you to Edinburgh. If my proposal does not suit, you need only keep the matter secret and there is no harm done'."

Scott added in a postscript that he had read the Sketch Book, thought it was "positively beautiful" and "only increases my desire to 'crimp' you."

In Irving's grateful reply he told Scott, "there is a genial sunshine about you that warms every creeping thing into heart and confidence", but added that Scott had a higher regard of his literary talents than he himself.

The course of his life had been "desultory" and "unfitted for any periodically recurring task… . I have to watch the varyings of my mind as I would those of a weathercock… . I am as useless for regular service as one of my own country Indians or a Don Cossack," Irving told Scott as he turned down his offer.

Dr Iain Brown, principal curator, manuscripts, at the National Library of Scotland, said the periodical to which Scott was referring was one of several proposed by Constable which "never came to pass".

"Constable was very heavily involved with Scott and published his work in the Edinburgh Review. And Scott was always trying to attract top literary people to Edinburgh. He also would go out of his way to help someone he admired and respected, like Irving. At that time Edinburgh was a very attractive place because it was one of the leading literary centres in Europe."

More reading

Sir Walter Scott

Even though Irving rejected Scott's overtures, the two men were in contact very shortly afterwards. Irving had the Sketch Book published not by Constable but by an independent bookseller in London. A month later, the bookseller went out of business and Scott arrived in London. Irving wrote that Scott, "more propitious than Hercules, put his own shoulder to the wheel" and found a new publisher.

Irving, whose father was brought up on the Orkney island of Shapinsay, may have turned down the chance to join the Edinburgh literary elite but he never forgot the help and encouragement Scott gave him.

"I feel I am but discharging in a trifling degree my debt of gratitude to the memory of that golden-hearted man in acknowledging my obligations to him. But who of his literary contemporaries ever applied to him for aid or counsel that did not experience the most prompt, generous and effectual assistance."

If you enjoyed reading this, you may want to read:

Scotland and the ultimate reference book