The Devil and Tom Walker
Complete textTom Walker, a miser living near a wooded swamp, encounters a sinister figure associated with buried treasure. The offer promises wealth on terms that expose Tom’s appetite for gain. His dealings turn a supernatural bargain into a satire of ordinary greed and the respectable forms it can assume.
Continue readingAbout The Devil and Tom Walker
The story links a dark landscape with habits of acquisition already present in the household. Tom does not need to become an entirely different person to accept the bargain’s logic. Watch how religious behavior and financial behavior interact, particularly when outward piety offers a convenient performance of security rather than a change in the treatment of others.
Reading focus
Examine how a supernatural bargain magnifies ordinary greed, especially when public piety becomes a strategy for protecting material advantage.
This reading edition contains 4,770 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Washington Irving. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly-wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water’s edge, into a high ridge on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size. It was under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, that Kidd the pirate buried his treasure. The inlet allowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very foot of the hill. The elevation of the place permitted a good look-out to be kept that no one was at…
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This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 1 section and 4,770 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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