Episode 16: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

There are few things Better Read than Dead enjoys more than owning dipsh*ts/watching dipsh*ts get owned, which is why we were so psyched to read Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820). Irving’s spooky (no, hilarious) short story is about a tall dipsh*t who gets owned by a Headless Horseman. Or a pumpkin? Or, really, just the Dutch version of Gaston. Also, did you know Irving was the OG flat-earther?? He sure was! Chemtrails -- google it, folks. We’re talking genre, colonial histories, Cotton Mather, and more.

We read the version of "Sleepy Hollow" in the Oxford edition of The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., edited by Susan Manning. We don’t get into this aspect on the show all that much, but David Anthony’s article “‘Gone Distracted’: ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ Gothic Masculinity, and the Panic of 1819” offers an interesting reading of the connections between Irving’s treatment of gender and the story’s immediate historical context.

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