| Title | : | Old Christmas: From the Sketch Book |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 160355078X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781603550789 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 198 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1820 |
Old Christmas: From the Sketch Book Reviews
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The old Christmas traditions of merrie England clearly held a strong attraction for Washington Irving. In his Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20), he included, along with much better-known works like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” five sketches setting forth his favorable impressions of a traditional English Christmas celebration that he had the good fortune to witness while traveling in Yorkshire one December.
The Sketch Book vaulted Irving to instant literary fame, and helped make him the first American author able to support himself solely through the income from his writing. Yet it was not until 1875, sixteen years after Irving’s 1859 death, that those five Christmas sketches were published on their own as Old Christmas; and in that independent capacity, they provide a pleasant accompaniment to the holiday season.
The edition that I would recommend is the one that I have before me, published (appropriately enough) by the Sleepy Hollow Press of Tarrytown, New York. A helpful foreword by Andrew B. Myers of Fordham University establishes the historical and social context within which the Macmillan publishing company of London published the five Christmas sketches as the book Old Christmas, with evocative illustrations by Randolph Caldecott.
Myers’s foreword also helped me to reconsider Irving’s work in its entirety. On a first reading of The Sketch Book, I found that I sometimes lost patience with Irving’s seeming eagerness to talk about how everything in England was wonderful simply because it was old. Myers argues persuasively, however, that Irving’s world-view is best regarded as a measured appreciation for all that has proven to be of lasting value: “Ubi sunt – where are? – the tested ways of old, is a theme in much of Irving’s canon” (e). As I see it, that means that Irving’s conservatism was a conservatism of temperament, and was not of the tea-party or red-state kind; were he alive today, he would not be flying down to West Palm Beach to appear on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and offer maximum dittos. Nor, I think, would he be wearing a “MAGA” hat.
The American Irving’s reverence for England’s “tested ways of old” takes on particular significance when one considers that, just four years before the publication of The Sketch Book, America and England had been at war. The War of 1812 may seem like a “small” war by modern standards – my English father-in-law was not even taught anything about it when he was growing up in Essex – but, like all wars, it killed people (about 20,000 of them), and left much bitterness in its wake. In that context, as Myers puts it, “Irving’s festive message, in troubled transatlantic times, for these recent foes, was to all readers of good will” (d). These five Christmas sketches, in their quiet way, may have done much to encourage favorable feelings between Britons and Americans, and to promote peace on earth.
The five sketches themselves, working as what Myers calls “a deliberate effort to praise anew ancient Noël folkways [Irving] felt in danger of disappearing” (e), work surprisingly well as an independent little book of their own. In a conventional publication, they would not take up much space at all; I own the Penguin Books edition of The Sketch Book (helpfully re-titled The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories), and in that book the five Christmas sketches take up only 44 pages, from pp. 147-91. In order for Old Christmas to fill out the 159 pages of the edition I hold before me, the publishers had to adopt a number of clever stratagems: the book is relatively small in size, the typeface is large, the line spacing is generous, and the illustrations are many. But it would be Grinchy or Scroogelike to dwell at too much length on such things; so let us be generous, and hurry on to the tales themselves.
The first of the sketches, “Christmas,” frames Old Christmas well, with a claim that many readers, especially at this time of year, would no doubt agree with: “Of all the old festivals…that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations” (3). In the second, “The Stage Coach,” Irving describes a Christmas Eve stagecoach journey through Yorkshire, praises English coachmen as a “very numerous and important class of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves” (22), and tells of how a chance meeting with an English friend named Frank Bracebridge resulted in an invitation to the Bracebridges’ Yorkshire estate for an old-fashioned English Christmas.
The third of the sketches, “Christmas Eve,” enables us to spend December 24th in the company of Frank Bracebridge’s father, “The Squire,” a decidedly old-school country gentleman who “prides himself upon keeping up something of old English hospitality” (pp. 43-44), and “even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few centuries earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs” (p. 45). The fourth, “Christmas Day,” takes us through the elaborate rituals, both religious and secular, of December 25th at the Bracebridge estate, a time when “Everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality” (p. 79). And the fifth and last of the sketches, “The Christmas Dinner,” may well whet the reader’s appetite for some gustatory Christmas cheer of his or her own, given the loving detail with which Irving sets forth the holiday foods and drinks enjoyed by Squire Bracebridge and his guests.
The text and illustrations of Old Christmas complement one another well. Illustrator Caldecott does fine when interpreting the broad, caricature-like strokes with which Irving delineates minor characters, but his work shines when he depicts people who are young and in love. Caldecott’s health was always poor, and he was only 40 years old when he died; and when I look at the beautiful young women of his illustrations, I can’t help but think that Caldecott was feeling intimations of mortality, expressing his own sense that he would never get the chance to grow old with the woman he loved.
As for Irving’s text, the great son of New York’s Hudson River Valley excels at description, and conveys energetically the Yuletide interactions among the residents of, and visitors to, Bracebridge Hall. At the same time, I sense a tension between, on the one hand, Irving’s disposition to revere the ways of old, and, on the other hand, his pride in being a citizen of a young country where innovation and new ways of thinking are prized.
Case in point: I sense that Irving does not approve when he quotes Squire Bracebridge talking of how “The nation…is altered; we have almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They have broken asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their interests are separate. They have become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform” (p. 109).
After all, one does not have to be a card-carrying member of the I.W.W. to ask, in response to the Squire’s disapproving words: Is there anything wrong with a “simple, true-hearted peasant” wanting to improve his or her lot in life? Or to read newspapers? Or to take an interest in politics? Or – saints preserve us! – to believe that some elements of society may need reforming?
Old Christmas is a fun holiday read; and as Myers points out in his foreword, it can be linked with other Christmas classics that helped set the tone for how the holiday season would be celebrated in North America and Western Europe – Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” (1823), for example, or Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol (1843). If you are disposed to make merry during the holiday season, Irving’s little book certainly deserves a place in your stocking. -
Christmas in England! The stuff of my dreams. This collection of five Christmas essays, both entertaining and informative, paints a lovely picture of the festive season in the early 1800s. The stories left me wondering, however, how an American author had acquired such an intimate knowledge of the seasonal traditions of 19th-century England. As usual, Wikipedia yielded some details.
Washington Irving had moved from New York City to England in 1815 to try to salvage his family's trading business following the War of 1812. When the business slipped into bankruptcy in 1817, Irving was left without employment and subsequently chose, rather than returning to the USA "to the pity of my friends", to remain in England to try to make a name as a writer. Irving spent the next 15 years travelling in Europe and publishing an interesting variety of works.
This particular group of essays first appeared in the USA on January 1, 1820 as the fifth instalment of a seven-volume serialized edition of
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (published under the pseudonym of
Geoffrey Crayon, one of many pen-names used by
Washington Irving). The seven paperback volumes containing 34 essays and stories were published in the USA between June 1819 and July 1820. Thirty-two of the pieces were published in England in 1820 in two hardback volumes. Further details about the British edition, as well as some lovely images, can be found
on this blog.
These essays provide a brief and lighthearted introduction to the work of Washington Irving, as well as a charming picture of Christmas celebrations in an English country house of the early 19th century. The collection has inspired me to seek out additional stories from
The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon as well as other works by this important American author. -
Quaint and enjoyable! Wonderful book to end 2021! 🥳
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7/10
I needed a pre-Christmas injection of Hallmark Sentimentality, without having to suffer through a Hallmark movie, and this fit the bill nicely, she said, only half in jest.
Nicely done, Mr. Irving. -
This is a delightful quick read. I was able to finish it in little over an hour,and while eating breakfast. I love the language Irving uses....this basically talks about early Christmas celebrating in America,and some English traditions brought here.
Did you know they ate Peacock? It's interesting how it was prepared. I would recommend you read this with a piping hot drink to warm the cockles,and enjoy this short but fun little read. Definitely worth the time to read on Christmas Eve or Day....to escape from those annoying little relatives....I also recommend Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales...also short...also delightful.
Now I am on to A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which I try to read every year. -
What a grand depiction of a victorian Christmas!
Irving is quite grandiloquent and has a unique way with words. The pages are filled with vivid descriptions of English pasture, wintry landscapes, luscious dinner tables and fire crackling at the hearth. He has some specific notion of Christmas, I really enjoyed reading it. The countryside abundance manifests itself in Irving’s generous style and grandiose selection of words.
One thing though, I made a mistake of listening to the audiobook version and took a look at the book later. If you do not want to miss out on the beautiful illustrations which complete the pages, try the Gutenberg project for this.
I have to say I was hungry throughout this book! The eccentric food decorating the tables made me want to jump into a time machine to experience the olden christmas in England:
“I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which over shadowed a considerable tract of the table. This the Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant-pie, though a peacock-pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.”
Well weirdly delicious!
Eating, drinking and dancing, what more would anyone want from Christmas?
In his final words, he puts himself in the readers’ shoes: “Me thinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "To what purpose is all this?—how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?"
And answers his question in his final words:
But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.
Oh, he has a way with words, that’s for sure! I have to read his other works! -
A sweet, joyous, and delightful rendezvous with Christmas past. We could all use a bit of that, I think.
Review here:
https://www.greatbookstudy.com/2020/1... -
What a quaint old book this is! Washington Irving is best known for spooky stories set in the early part of 18th century America but here he looks back to the England that he traveled to in his younger days. There's a grand old country family with it's patriarch who entertains his extended family and even part of the village he heads. Irving describes these pre-Victorian (where lots of our modern traditions hail from) traditions as simple but still very enjoyable. As will most likely always be the case food and drink are a very important part of the celebrations as well as decorative greenery and children's games. In this case Squire Birchbridge, as he's known by all, has a right hand man who's a distant relative who keeps things organized and moving along by herding the children, letting visitors know of the traditions, and even preparing the Christmas Wassail. The Squire delights in the country customs and shuns London for his country life preferring to read books from previous eras that describe English country gentlemen's lives. He's also a keen amateur musician.....ok not exactly a musician but he does like to hunt out old verse and put it to tradition hymns and get the locals to perform them.
Here's one of my favorite passages from the book. It describes a thrown together church choir and orchestra:
"The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads,[98:] piled one above the other, among which I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the clarionet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and labouring at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two or three pretty faces among the female[99:] singers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as several had to sing from the same book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones.
The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter, to be in at the death. But the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on which he had founded great expectation. Unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset; the musicians became flurried; Master Simon was in a fever, everything went on lamely and irregularly until[100:] they came to a chorus beginning "Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon, as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a[101:] quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration."
This description made me laugh out loud! Irving also describes the Squire's many relatives, both young, middle and older aged as almost having stepped down from the manor house portraits since they all resemble one another so much.
There's also a village myth that a crusading knight Bridgebirch, who's buried in his armor, legs crossed to symbolize his having taken part in the Middle Eastern wars, as being restless and walking the church late at night or the church grounds trying to redress an old wrong or let people know where he's buried the family's treasure. One of the very best parts of this book is the lovely contemporary illustrations. Irving's "Old Christmas is a delicious seasonal treat. -
Colección de los cinco ensayos navideños del autor estadounidense Washington Irving, responsables de que la Navidad se popularizase en Estados Unidos y de que Charles Dickens escribiera sus cuentos navideños. Una obra de carácter descriptivo que te permite descubrir cómo se celebraban estas fechas en la campiña inglesa de principios del siglo XIX.
RESEÑA COMPLETA:
https://youtu.be/X-inWnaqXdQ -
Old Christmas by Washington Irving conveys a simple message of the joy of the Christmas season and its traditions. This is a nice and uplifting story and I’m glad I stumbled across this audiobook on LibriVox.
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Very short. By a man who loves Christmas and is full of positive feeling about it, except of course that the young people are ruining it, and no, it should be done the old way, and look! isn't the old way lovely?
And it is lovely.
There are all kinds of Christmases, all kinds of ways to celebrate it - this book only proves that. -
A charming little book filled with ancient Christmas traditions. Irving's power of description does a great job of taking you back to older times.
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A charming memoir on Irving's time in Britain. The chapter that includes his reflections on the Christmas prayer service is especially good.
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Old Christmas is a collection of five short stories that Washington Irving originally published in January 1820 as the fifth American installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. All are told from Crayon’s first-person perspective as a traveler in England.
The first piece, “Christmas,” is an introductory essay in which Crayon reflects on the meaning of Christmas and the celebration of the holiday. “Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what bosom can remain insensible? It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling—the season for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart.” He is unabashed in his love for Christmas, especially the old English Christmas traditions and customs that he saw were, sadly, fading away.
In the other four stories in the collection, Crayon illustrates his observations about English Christmas festivities with anecdotes of a Christmas that he spent in the English countryside. While traveling in a coach, he meets his friend Frank Bracebridge, who invites him to spend Christmas with his family at their country manor, Bracebridge Hall. The patriarch of the family, old Squire Bracebridge, is careful to preserve his ancestral estate in its original state. And when it comes to Christmas, he insists that his family and friends celebrate it in the authentic old English style.
Crayon participates in the festivities and enjoys them, but he also describes them with the keen observational eye of the experienced traveler and social chronicler. Some aspects of the goings-on amuse him. Looking around the table at dinner, for example, he notes that by comparing the diners with the family portraits on the walls, he could have “traced an old family nose … handed down from generation to generation.” But he’s a polite guest: “There were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently something traditionary in their embellishments; but about which, as I did not like to appear over-curious, I asked no questions.” In describing the choir at church, he says that “everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning ‘Now let us sing with one accord,’ which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion.”
Crayon admires the squire’s kindness and benevolence, but he pokes some fun at his belief in the power of the Christmas traditions to pacify the peasants. “‘Our old games and local customs,’ said he, ‘had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home, and the promotion of them by the gentry made him fond of his lord.’” Crayon doesn’t say so explicitly, but it’s clear that as an American, he finds this noblesse oblige attitude a bit condescending—and probably delusional.
This short book (an excerpt really, as described above) helped ease me into the Christmas spirit. The descriptions of the old English Christmas traditions were quite interesting and educational. And Irving’s writing is lively and amusing. I enjoyed the book, and if you’re looking for a quick holiday read, I’d recommend it. -
Full of charm - and wonderful sketches - this little book is a collection of observances about Christmas in England many years ago. It begins with the authour rambling a bit about Christmas and how it has changed, then he meets up with a friend, and having no other plans, agrees to join him and his family for Christmas.
The family live in a large manor house where the Christmas gathering includes people of all ages. The Christmas Eve celebrations are described - from the children's games to the grown-ups toasting each other over the wassail bowl - then the next chapter talks about Christmas morning and another details the Christmas feast.
I tend to leave books I like quite marked up and I found lots to underline in Old Christmas:
On society... "The World has become more worldly. There is more of dissipation and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has expanded into a broader but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life."
On Christmas..."It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling - the season for rekindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart."
On family..."It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow."
As good as those are, my favourite quote comes from the last ten lines of the book...but I'll leave you to discover that for yourself.
This is a treasure of a book. I never get tired of reading it, it's such a pleasure. I class it with "A Child's Christmas In Wales" and "A Christmas Carol" and I think that's probably the best recommendation I can give it! -
In my pile of Christmas reading, I found this old, old story. Dust and musty air caught between the pages and freed itself in my 2019 room. . . .
Poor old Washington Irving sounded just like my old grandpa years ago, about how nobody celebrated Christmas like they'd done in his youth. Then W Irving describes every kind of "christmas" thing that is not on my list - peacock pie? A harpier in the corner? a game called snap-dragon? It was the description of a world of a world of a world away from mine. . . .and knowing some old grandpa of mine would have loved his gentle grumble that was really an excuse to remind all those who'd had such a Christmas that there was another who remembered those days as well.
A pleasure to add to my holiday reading treats this year. 3 stars as it was very toned down for my taste, and primarily just a tour through that time and space, not really a story. -
Old Christmas is rather a charming essay, made up of Washington Irving's reflections on Christmas traditions. I found some sections far more interesting than others, but very much admired his writing style throughout, and loved learning about forgotten festive customs. A must-read for Christmas.
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Touted as the author who singlehandedly revived American Christmas traditions, Irving depicts light narrations of rural British celebration. Bountiful adjectives, food, music, more adjectives, and blazing firesides. I read it as a comparison to Dickens' Christmas celebration in his Pickwick Papers.
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A delightful, nostalgic reminiscence about old English Christmas celebrations and customs. Perfect for getting in the holiday spirit.
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This is a collection of five essays by Irving that describe Christmas in England. The first essay is an overview and description of Christmas, both as to meaning and ways of celebrating it. The next four essays, “The Stagecoach”, “Christmas Eve”, “Christmas Day”, and “Christmas Dinner” describe a method of observing Christmas that is virtually non-existent today. As I read this (slowly!!), I thought of the movie version of “The Christmas Carol”, the one with Alastair Sim as Scrooge. This was so enjoyable, and among the many passages that struck me, was this one from “Christmas Eve”: “It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.” It’s passages like this, and the description of a truly old fashioned Christmas, that give this book a nostalgic feel, and generate not a little homesickness. (And make me think of COLORED lights, not WHITE lights, on a Christmas tree).
There are a lot of layers to these essays, and I was truly sorry to come to the end, as I tried to drag it out as long as I could. So, I have already started reading them again, since it’s only 7 DEC. I’ve found some things that I missed the first time, and this little book is already acting as a soothing break from work, reading other books, etc. Washington Irving’s writing, in any of his stories and works, never fails to engage me. -
I picked this up for several reasons. I read an article here --
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/d... that detailed how Old Christmas was the father of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I read another essay that while Washington Irving didn't invent Christmas, he certainly "dressed it up." And finally, it was Christmas weekend and I wanted something new but delightfully old fashioned to read. This certainly fit the bill. If you read Dickens every holiday season, consider adding Washington Irving to that list. You won't be disappointed. The first few paragraphs of the first story are my favorite - poignant and moving. Even here in sunny summery southern California, Irving made me feel the chill bite of winter and longed for a hearth to huddle by. I loved the character of Master Simon, the bachelor reletive who sings, tells the best stories, and makes the young girls giggle at inappropriate times and gossips with the old widows. He's definitely an archetype. The Randolph Caldecott illustrations - he of the medal fame - are whimsically fantastic. -
Not engaging but it is descriptive, painting a detailed picture of how Christmas was celebrated years ago (c1700s? 1800s? maybe some of both?). I can see how the preparations gave people something to anticipate in the days before electricity, faster transportation, and instant communication. Just think how long those dark nights must have felt, how seldom many country-dwellers would have talked with friends, and how much time they may have had on their hands without as much outdoor work to do. The author was nostalgic for the "old Christmas" celebrations.
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One of Washinton Irving's most often read books. Set at Bracebridge Hall in the north of England in the early 1800s it describes his "experiences" during the families Yuletide celebrations, & is a delightful picture of an "Old Christmas" complete with Youle logs, holly wreaths & greens, holiday parlour games, music & merriment. My wife & I read this classic every year at Christmas as part of our Yuletide celebration & Christmas wouldn't seem complete without it. A perfect delight.
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A fascinating, Dickensian depiction of Christmas traditions in the 19th-century English countryside. Made me nostalgic for a time when Instagramming gifts wasn't a prevalent part of Christmas. Be sure to read an edition containing Caldecott's wonderful illustrations (can be found here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20656/...). -
It has become a Christmas tradition of mine to read Washington Irving's Old Christmas, an excerpt from his Sketchbook, with wonderful illustrations by Caldecott originally published in 1875. The caricatures and sketches of old English Christmas traditions always puts me in a festive and contemplative mood for the season and can be easily read over the course of an evening or so.
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I love the old language, beautiful descriptions, and the reasons why traditions are so important. Old Christmas is about the medieval and Renaissance traditions of old England, as upheld by an old country squire. Lovely and quaint!
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Very quaint. The diction was a delight, as was Irving's poignant yearning for the Christmas celebrations of yesteryear.
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An interesting look at earlier Christmas celebrations written in Irving's notable descriptive writing style.
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The old Christmas traditions of merrie England clearly held a strong attraction for Washington Irving. In his Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20), he included, along with much better-known works like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” five sketches setting forth his favorable impressions of a traditional English Christmas celebration that he had the good fortune to witness while traveling in Yorkshire one December. The Sketch Book vaulted Irving to instant literary fame, and helped make him the first American author able to support himself solely through the income from his writing. Yet it was not until 1875, sixteen years after Irving’s 1859 death, that those five Christmas sketches were published on their own as Old Christmas; and in that independent capacity, they provide a pleasant accompaniment to the holiday season.
The edition that I would recommend is the one that I have before me, published (appropriately enough) by the Sleepy Hollow Press of Tarrytown, New York. A helpful foreword by Andrew B. Myers of Fordham University establishes the historical and social context within which the Macmillan publishing company of London published the five Christmas sketches as the book Old Christmas, with evocative illustrations by Randolph Caldecott. Myers’s foreword also helped me to reconsider Irving’s work in its entirety. Encountering Irving’s well-known conservatism on a first reading of The Sketch Book, I found that I often lost patience with Irving’s seeming eagerness to talk about how everything in England was wonderful simply because it was old. Myers argues persuasively, however, that Irving’s world-view is best regarded as a measured appreciation for all that has proven to be of lasting value: “Ubi sunt – where are? – the tested ways of old, is a theme in much of Irving’s canon” (e). As I see it, that means that Irving’s conservatism was not of the tea-party or red-state kind; were he alive today, he would not be flying down to West Palm Beach to appear on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and offer maximum dittos.
The American Irving’s reverence for England’s “tested ways of old” takes on particular significance when one considers that, just four years before the publication of The Sketch Book, America and England had been at war. The War of 1812 may seem like a “small” war by modern standards – my English father-in-law was not even taught anything about it when he was growing up in Essex – but, like all wars, it killed people (about 20,000 of them), and left much bitterness in its wake. In that context, as Myers puts it, “Irving’s festive message, in troubled transatlantic times, for these recent foes, was to all readers of good will” (d). These five Christmas sketches, in their quiet way, may have done much to encourage favorable feelings between Britons and Americans, and to promote peace on earth.
The five sketches themselves, working as what Myers calls “a deliberate effort to praise anew ancient Noël folkways [Irving] felt in danger of disappearing” (e), work surprisingly well as an independent little book of their own. In a conventional publication, they would not take up much space at all; I own the Penguin Books edition of The Sketch Book (helpfully re-titled The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories), and in that book the five Christmas sketches take up only 44 pages, from pp. 147-91. In order for Old Christmas to fill out the 159 pages of the edition I hold before me, the publishers had to adopt a number of clever stratagems: the book is relatively small in size, the typeface is large, the line spacing is generous, and the illustrations are many. But it would be Grinchy or Scroogelike to dwell at too much length on such things; so let us be generous, and hurry on to the tales themselves.
The first of the sketches, “Christmas,” frames Old Christmas well, with a claim that many readers, especially at this time of year, would no doubt agree with: “Of all the old festivals…that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations” (3). In the second, “The Stage Coach,” Irving describes a Christmas Eve stagecoach journey through Yorkshire, praises English coachmen as a “very numerous and important class of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves” (22), and tells of how a chance meeting with an English friend named Frank Bracebridge resulted in an invitation to the Bracebridges’ Yorkshire estate for an old-fashioned English Christmas. The third, “Christmas Eve,” enables us to spend December 24th in the company of Frank Bracebridge’s father, “The Squire,” a decidedly old-school country gentleman who “prides himself upon keeping up something of old English hospitality” (pp. 43-44), and “even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few centuries earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs” (p. 45). The fourth, “Christmas Day,” takes us through the elaborate rituals, both religious and secular, of December 25th at the Bracebridge estate, a time when “Everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality” (p. 79). And the fifth and last of the sketches, “The Christmas Dinner,” may well whet the reader’s appetite for some gustatory Christmas cheer of his or her own, given the loving detail with which Irving sets forth the holiday foods and drinks enjoyed by Squire Bracebridge and his guests.
The text and illustrations of Old Christmas complement one another well. Illustrator Caldecott does fine when interpreting the broad, caricature-like strokes with which Irving delineates minor characters, but his work shines when he depicts people who are young and in love. Caldecott’s health was always poor, and he was only 40 years old when he died; and when I look at the beautiful young women of his illustrations, I can’t help but think that Caldecott was feeling intimations of mortality, expressing his own sense that he would never get the chance to grow old with the woman he loved.
As for Irving’s text, the great son of New York’s Hudson River Valley excels at description, and conveys energetically the Yuletide interactions among the residents of, and visitors to, Bracebridge Hall. At the same time, I can’t help fearing that Irving’s disposition to revere the ways of old, and the upper-class people who are in charge of preserving said ways, may sometimes blind him to other points of view. Case in point: I hope that Irving does not approve when he quotes Squire Bracebridge talking of how “The nation…is altered; we have almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They have broken asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their interests are separate. They have become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform” (p. 109). One does not have to be a card-carrying member of the I.W.W. to ask: Is there anything wrong with a “simple, true-hearted peasant” wanting to improve his or her lot in life? Or to read newspapers? Or to take an interest in politics? Or – saints preserve us! – to believe that some elements of society may be in need of reform?
Yet I do not want to overemphasize politics at the expense of good cheer. Old Christmas is a fun holiday read; and as Myers points out in his foreword, it can be linked with other Christmas classics like Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” (1823) and Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol (1843). If you are disposed to make merry during the holiday season, Irving’s little book certainly deserves a place in your stocking.
