Dear, Drear Washington Irving

In surveys of historically underestimated writers that appear occasionally in publications like the Time Literary Supplement and, now, The Republic of Letters, I don’t recall ever seeing the name Washington Irving. There’s a reason for that: he’s not that good. Important though he was in the establishment of a national literature, it’s hard to get past his labored humor and fusty prose. I’ve tried. My Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings contains an awful lot of Other Writings that refuse to yield anything like the pleasures to be had from the title tale and “Rip Van Winkle.” Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but my fitful efforts to discover overlooked gems have only turned up painfully unfunny specimens of wit such as this headnote to Salmagundi No. VII: “LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI.”