The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Complete textIchabod Crane, a schoolmaster with an appetite for food, ghost stories and advancement, courts Katrina Van Tassel in a secluded Hudson Valley community. His ambitions meet local rivalry, while tales of the Headless Horseman give the familiar roads a threatening imaginative life.
Continue readingAbout The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The narrator lingers over meals, landscape and community storytelling, allowing desire and superstition to reinforce one another. Ichabod's interpretations are shaped by what he wants as well as what he fears. Competing accounts invite readers to consider how a neighborhood turns uncertain events into an entertaining and durable local legend.
Reading focus
Compare Ichabod's appetite for ghost stories with the social interests served by the community's own storytelling.
This reading edition contains 12,218 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 pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
Contents
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Is this the complete The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 1 section and 12,218 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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