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Diedrich Knickerbocker.
Felix O. C. Darley, wash drawing, 1849.
This wash drawing was published as a frontispiece illustration for [Irving] Diedrich Knickerbocker's A History of New-York. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1849. When the book was first published in 1809, many old
Dutch families were scandalized at Irving's mockery of their lives:
One lady was pointedly indignant against him, and in an outburst of wrath vowed, if she were a man, she would horsewhip him. The historian was wonderfully amused upon hearing this, and with
a degree of modest impudence quite foreign to his natural character, forthwith determined to seek an introduction. He accordingly prevailed on a friend to take him to her house. She received him
very stiffly at first, but before the end of the interview he had succeeded in making himself so agreeable that she relaxed entirely from her hauteur, and they became very good friends.*
* Pierre M. Irving. The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. 4 vols. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1862 - 1864. |
