Rip Van Winkle’s Republic: Washington Irving in History and Memory

by Curtis Armstrong (contributor), Elizabeth Bradley (Contributor), Matthew Dennis (Contributor)

Two centuries ago, native New Yorker Washington Irving exploded onto the literary scene of Europe with the publication of his breakout collection of stories, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Published in England and America in 1819­–1820, and universally praised for its inventive characters and soul-searching qualities, including the immortal tales “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the volume enjoyed remarkable transatlantic success, allowing Irving to become the first of his nation to support himself as a professional author.

In this distinctive collection, historians and literary scholars come together to reassess Irving’s imaginative world and complex cultural legacy. Alternately a satirist and a nostalgia merchant, Irving was ever absorbed in reconstituting a lost past, which the volume dubs “Rip Van Winkle’s Republic.” The assembled scholars explore issues of Anglo-American culture, the power of imagery, race, and the treatment of time and history in Irving’s vast body of literature, as well as his status as a bibliophile, an antiquarian, and a prominent figure in an age of literary celebrity.

Edited by acclaimed historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Rip Van Winkle’s Republic marks a rediscovery of this marvelous author of social satire and fabled tales of the past.

271 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Curtis Armstrong was born in Michigan in 1953. He divided his early years between Detroit—a town apparently so nerdy that the word “nerd” was coined there in 1949--and Geneva, Switzerland, which by comparison, wasn’t nerdy at all. Following a childhood spent mainly between the covers of books, Armstrong discovered the theatre.

He studied at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rochester, Michigan, which led to a forty-plus year acting career that shows no signs of slowing. After eight years of stage work in New York and around the country, Armstrong was cast in his first film, Risky Business, starring Tom Cruise. It was the beginning of a string of classic comedy films and television shows, including Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, TV’s Moonlighting and, most significantly, Revenge of the Nerds, in which he played the iconic role of Booger.

Since then Armstrong, a nerd icon himself has appeared in dozens of films and TV shows including, recently, Supernatural and The New Girl. He co-created and co-hosted the hit comedy-reality show King of the Nerds, which brought his nerd narrative full circle. He is married to writer Elaine Aronson, and has one daughter, Lily.