The Devil and Tom Walker

by Washington Irving

The Devil and Tom Walker a short story by Washington Irving that first appeared in his 1824 collection of stories titled Tales of a Traveller. The story is very similar to that of the ancient German legend of Faust.

Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Horror, Fiction, School, Fantasy, Read For School

38 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1824

About the author

People remember American writer Washington Irving for the stories " Rip Van Winkle " and " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ," contained in The Sketch Book (1820).

This author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century wrote newspaper articles under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle to begin his literary career at the age of nineteen years.

In 1809, he published The History of New York under his most popular public persona, Diedrich Knickerbocker.

Historical works of Irving include a five volume biography of George Washington (after whom he was named) as well as biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and several histories, dealing with subjects, such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra, of 15th-century Spain. John Tyler, president, appointed Irving to serve as the first Spanish speaking United States minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

Reviews

[Majenta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read after Nathaniel Hawthorne's YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN. But with his "clapperclaw" of a wife, why should he be startled by the screaming of any woodland creature?

[Duane Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s an old story, a story told a thousand times in a thousand different ways: a greedy person trades their soul for riches, and in the end regrets having made the choice. I really like this version because the characters Irving chose, the setting, and his descriptions of them were perfect. Mr. Irving knew how to tell a tale.

[Ginger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great! Old school horror and an excellent cautionary tale!

[Tyler Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I should have read it instead of listened to it. I was bored and didn't get much from it. Maybe I'll try it again at a later time.

[Tiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kids, don't be greedy or you might end up in one of Irving's story.

I actually loved this one. I loved the characters and how they were presented. It didn't take pages for me to know them but I actually got a good idea of who they are, well done Irving. The story is basically about this greedy man who doesn't like his life and decides to sell his soul to the devil. I loved his relationship with his wife and the foreshadowing presented in the story. I didn't see the ending coming, which I liked very much too. Overall, very interesting and I would absolutely recommend it.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great classic horror!

[Kon R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got fully invested fairly quick. Just as I was wondering how it will end, it did and in the most epic way. I had to chuckle a bit at all the obliviously greedy people and how they spew things out of their mouths they don't mean. This story will make them think twice before speaking.

[Shanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love The Devil and Tom Walker because it appeals to a four year old as much as it appeals to a forty-four year old. What is so special is that each time it is read, it is different, and it definitely challenges the reader to consider depravity and sinful desires in a new light.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Washington Irving's short story, The Devil And Tom Walker gets quickly to the point as the greedy, unscrupulous Tom sells his soul to the devil and in the end discovers the consequences..........

[Latasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remembered reading this in school & loving it. So I revisited it and I still love it!

Rereading it again & still 5 stars!

[Dana Cristiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.75 stars. I don't know why, but it wasn't creepy nor scary at all! I couldn't really care for the characters.

The story was interesting and well-written, but it didn't do anything for me. I was very neutral about it.

You can find it for free here: https://americanliterature.com/author...

[Lila'sbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read for school so not much to say. Kinda strange but interesting too I guess. 🤷‍♀️

[Patricio · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Devil and Tom Walker is a short story written by Washington Irving. Mr. Irving was a short story writer of the early 19 century. The setting of the story is set to be in Boston, outside the city in an old house. Since the beginning of the story, the reader can inference that the story is going to be scary due to the setting.

The first characters present in the story are Tom Walker and his wife. Both are them are experiencing problems, which this adds suspense to the story. One day Tom decided to go for a walk, nearby his house he found The devil. The devil wanted to negotiate and trade a treasure with Tom Walker. The Devil told Tom Walker to give him his soul in exchange of money, but he denied. When Tom Walker wife heard of the deal, she angrily went to look for the devil to accept the deal. She wanted to make a deal with the devil but she died in the process.



I think that the main theme of the story is that you should always appreciate what you have. You need to live a happy life and stop being greedy. You need to enjoy life and learn to make right decisions. The story was simple great, the author used a marriage as an example. There are times when life can hit you, but you still need to be your very best. There will be people will try to bring you down but you need to follow the right path and make good decisions for your life.

"Tom lost his patience and his piety. "The devil take me," said he, "if I have made a farthing!""

[Mary Overton]

"Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a great black man, seated directly opposite him on the stump of a tree. He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper colour, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair, that stood out from his head in all directions; and bore an axe on his shoulder.
"He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes.
"'What are you doing in my ground?' said the black man, with a hoarse growling voice.
"'Your grounds?' said Tom, with a sneer; 'no more your grounds than mine: they belong to Deacon Peabody.'
"'Deacon Peabody be d---d,' said the stranger, 'as I flatter myself he will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to his neighbour's. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring.'
"Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core, and saw that it had been nearly hewn through, so that the first high wind was likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name of Deacon Peabody...."

[Lauren Dillard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a horror story, but it turned out to be more of a moral cautionary tale. It was okay, not a bad story, but also not as exciting as I had hoped it would be. This seems like something I probably read in high school English class. Despite the somewhat predictable storyline, I enjoy Irving's writing style. This story makes me want to read Faust.

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 2 out of 5]

ENGLISH: This story by Washington Irving was adapted for TV and I have watched it now in the RTVE theater archive. A typical story about a man selling his soul to the devil to obtain riches. The evolution of the man's principles are well described.

Among the many versions of the Faustian myth, one of the most original appears in one episode of The Twilight Zone, where a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for immortality, and ends up begging the devil to take it back.

ESPAÑOL: Este cuento de Washington Irving fue adaptado para la televisión en el programa Estudio-1 de RTVE, adaptación que acabo de ver en su archivo. Típica historia de un hombre que vende su alma al diablo a cambio de riquezas. Describe bien cómo se van deteriorando los principios de ese hombre.

Entre las muchas versiones del mito fáustico, una de las más originales es la de un capítulo de la serie Dimensión Desconocida, en el que un hombre vende su alma al diablo a cambio de la inmortalidad, y termina rogándole que se la retire.

[DeeReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still one of my favorite classics by Washington Irving!

Not a happy ending for Tom Walker or his miserly wife!

"the devil take me if I have made a farthing!" -Tom Walker

The devil always gets his due!

[Stacy Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this short story! A Perfectly atmospheric fall read.

[Lisa K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of freaky

[Tatevik · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story was like old Italian fairy tale. I forgot how cool Irving’s stories are!

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Walker and his wife are a miserly pair who live outside Boston in the late 17th Century. They are always at each other. One day Tom takes a circuitous route home through a swampy forest. As he stops to rest, he finds himself sitting across an opening from a swarthy looking man holding an ax. Tom discovers the man to be the incarnation of the devil (Old Scratch himself). Because of Tom's disfunctional homelife, he is not intimidated by evil and contention, but even attempts to strike a deal with the devil. The book becomes an allegory for the consequences of flirting with evil. Washington Irving crafts and interesting tale of the superstitions and mind-sets of early New Englanders. Irving was a contemporary of (and friend to) President Andrew Jackson. While his tale takes place 150 years earlier than when he lived, he makes reference to the evils of usury and the cut-throat practices undertaken by unscrupulous bankers of his day. (Reference Biddly and the national bank which President Jackson and Congress dissembled). Irving is a gifted writer. The narrative was interesting but did not captivate me.

[Damaris (C) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"And away he galloped, with Tom on his back, in the midst of the thunder-storm."

Although you may not want to admit it, greed can often overpower us and make us act unethically. This is exactly the case with this short story in which Washington Irving writes about Tom Walker and his experience with the Devil’s temptation.
This story’s main focus, as said before, is greed, but in my opinion, it also is always being a good person (whether it relates to religion or not) and not only when you know that something bad could happen to you. This was the case when Tom became a regular church goer, but even that cannot keep the Devil away.
Overall, this short story isn’t as dark as Poe’s, for example, but it does deal with themes that can be considered as dark. It is a story in which the end was pretty obvious ever since Tom’s first encounter with the Devil. Would I read it again? Probably not, but it was quite entertaining.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" in College Prep Junior English. I enjoy it because it makes me reminisce about a class I took in college where we read a lot of Faust tales. I talk about this with my students, but the majority of them dislike this story (at least this year). Honestly, it's certainly not the best short story in the world, so I'm fine with them disliking it. My wish is that they'd give it a bit more thought so that they could at least intelligently explain why they dislike it.

[Phil Slattery · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining bit of what might be better termed "folk supernatural suspense" rather than horror, but it does help illustrate the initial development of the horror genre in American Literature. What is perhaps most interesting to contemplate about this story is that this is the type of ghost/horror story that existed before the advent of Edgar Allan Poe and probably would have been the state of the American horror art when he was a young writer. One has to wonder what he thought of this story.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Devil and Tom Walker is a simple story with a classic moral: don't make a deal with the devil. I found Washington Irving's interpretation of the Proust fable to be fascinating. Irving makes the devil black, but his devil also pushes Tom Walker into the investing the devil's money into the slave trade. I'd love to read essays that put Irving's work into historical context so we could interpret his political intentions.

[WhatShouldIRead · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I've been a slow reader lately but it did not take me 6 weeks to finish this book. Honest. I read most the stories, liked a few, thought a few were boring and skipped over some.

This edition had some stories, travelogue, internal thinking pieces and was just a variety of material.

A good little book to pick up whenever you have a few spare minutes to read a short story.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story to tell at Halloween. Fun read.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad short story, but nothing amazing either.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the way the author writes his story. It's so vivid, I felt I was riding on the shoulder of Tom Walker.

A short story of only 37 pages; it was a little unfulfilling.

[Vaishali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but a hasty ho-hum ending
Not exactly Nathaniel Hawthorne, are we ???
:)