...[a] charming biography ... [of] one of America’s greatest writers, bon vivants and literary showmen.
New York Times
...the definitive Irving biography for the current generation ... In more ways than one, Irving remains a superstar — one that Brian Jay Jones does proud.
The Providence Journal
...a fine biography -- engaging, clearly written and well researched, full of material that is likely to be unfamiliar to most modern readers...a crisply written account.
Washington Post Book World
...a rich portrait of a man growing in literary prowess in step with his young country's own development.
The book is so detailed, and so obviously well-researched, that it may overwhelm the average reader interested in learning more about Irving.
It's the risk an authoritative biography runs ... [but] any concerns about a top-heavy approach are outweighed by the pleasure of this complete portrait of Irving.
Associated Press (archive copy; 29Kb Microsoft Word document)
Jones' briskly written and comprehensive biography of this unjustly neglected figure is a pleasure to read and belongs in the library of any serious student of the United States' engagement with the world.
Foreign Affairs
Washington Irving is conventionally portrayed as the first professional American author. His shrewdness in gauging his readership, his firm dealings with publishers, his advocacy of copyright, all reinforce this portrayal. Mr. Jones brings new and fresh evidence to demonstrate just how shrewd and astute Irving could be, for all his apparent nonchalance.
New York Sun
Jones sheds the sharp light of modern scholarship on this traditionally hallowed but imperfectly known man to reveal a complex and sympathetic human being. Leaving literary criticism to academics, Jones instead focuses on Irving . . . [S]et against an early American cultural and political world full of tantalizingly unfamiliar historical figures, a warm and patient, grieving and theatrical, generous and loving Irving takes on a distinctly human form. . . this most recent portrait of the startlingly flawed and conflicted literary figure is recommended....
Library Journal
Here's the difference between a Kitty Kelley biography and one by a researcher such as Brian Jay Jones. Kelley takes innuendo and presents it as fact. Jones takes facts and leaves it up to the reader to find the innuendo. . . [Washington Irving's] perspective on the infancy and preteen years of the United States is unmatched. Jones does him justice, without being a snoop.
New Jersey Star-Ledger
[Jones's] breezy approach suits his agreeable subject. . . . A solid introduction to an interesting life.
Kirkus Reviews
Some of the most interesting sections describe Irving's interactions with other writers, like Poe and Dickens.
Irving emerges as a man with a deep need for praise and affirmation
. . . [Jones] gives him a great deal of credit for being the first American to figure out how to make a living as an author.
Publisher's Weekly
...painstakingly researched . . . Jones' approach is both refreshing and timely.
Mirage magazine
Washington Irving—first in American letters, first in the hearts of his readers, but surprisingly absent from the biography shelf.
Mr. Jones has addressed this absence by producing a fair and well-written account of one of the most important, yet humble, figures in our nation's literary history.
Irving must have been grand company. Mr. Jones's book is grand company.
Eric Burns, author of
Infamous Scribblers and
Virtue, Valor, and Vanity
How wonderful to have a biography of Washington Irving that sparkles as brightly as the original.
This seminal author deserves to be remembered, and even better, understood.
Thanks to Brian Jay Jones, we can now rub the sleep out of our eyes,
slip out of our Rip Van Winkle slumber, and celebrate a great American original.
Ted Widmer, author of
Martin Van Buren, and Director of the John Carter Brown Library
Behind Washington Irving's carefully cultivated public persona stood a complex man.
In his intriguing character study of Irving,
Brian Jones has put a personal face on one of America's first internationally recognized writers and celebrities.
Irving the Satirist would have enjoyed the style of this engaging read - chatty, charming, and irreverent!
Kathleen Eagen Johnson, Curator,
Historic Hudson Valley
A multifaceted biography written with grace, wit, and empathy... Irving has often puzzled his biographers.
In Jones's full-length portrait, he finally emerges in his full complexity.
Rarely has an author's life been told with such awareness of what it really means to produce books for an audience.
Christoph Irmscher, author of
The Poetics of Natural History,
Longfellow Redux, and
Public Poet, Private Man
In this gracefully written narrative of America's first successful and popular author,
Brian Jay Jones has given us a portrait of an American original...
In this succinct and clear analysis of Irving's literary legacy,
Jones persuasively argues that the creator of Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane,
and the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow deserves his rightful place as an American cultural icon
who oversaw the emergence of a distinctly American literature.
Edward P. Crapol, author of
John Tyler: The Accidental President, Pullen Professor, Emeritus, College of William and Mary
