This Day in Halloween: short-story writer, essayist, biographer and "Sleepy Hollow" author Washington Irving is born in New York City in 1783. / Illustration by Atlas Gutierrez
Washington Irving is born in New York City in 1783. The short-story writer, essayist, biographer, and diplomat was the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. He died in 1859 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in Tarrytown, New York where his classic story is based.
