Knickerbocker Group

These include James Kirke Paulding, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Joseph Rodman Drake, Robert Charles Sands, Lydia Maria Child, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, and Nathaniel Parker Willis,[2] most of whom were also frequent contributors to the literary magazine The Knickerbocker.

The short story The Black Vampyre has been viewed as a commentary on the Knickerbocker group, condemning them to be "vampires" that benefit on the behalf of others.

[3] Aside from the Irvings and Paulding, the initial members of the group consisted of, but were not limited to, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Gulian Verplanck, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant and Joseph Rodman Drake.

[11] Together the Knickerbocker group created many pieces of work including novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, prose, and plays.

[13] The full original title of this novel was A History of New-York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty; Containing, among Many Surprising and Curious Matters, the Unutterable Ponderings of Walter the Doubter, the Disastrous Projects of William the Testy, and the Chivalric Achievements of Peter the Headstrong—The Three Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam: Being the Only Authentic History of the Times that Ever Hath Been or Ever Will Be Published.

[5] A History of New York, From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty was very successful, in both America and Britain, and established Irving as a prominent writer of the time.

In 1825, William Hazlitt asserted that Irving’s writings were “literary anachronisms”[5] Robert Ferguson describes the novel as “an attempt to annihilate the history of America”.

[19] Some of the subsequent notable works attributed to Washington Irving (under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker) include: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

The Knickerbocker group is seen to have had a “profound influence on American Romanticism.”[22] In the early nineteenth century, the Romantic literature industry was expanding due to developments in Antebellum literary culture caused by increases in production, distribution, and consumption of books and periodicals.

[23] The Knickerbocker group, led by Washington Irving was influential in transforming this industry into a profitable one by championing competitive free market ideas.

Burstein says that all Knickerbocker writers had the same “edge” through “a mixture of sentiment and irony” which was distinctive at the time[21] The group often wrote in the gothic style.

[24] Within Knickerbocker writings the Bachelor aesthetic used metaphors of family and kinship as a means of explaining the political and cultural tensions of the time.

The group used essays featuring references to the works of visual artists in order to influence their audiences to consume other facets of art.

Knickerbocker writers were tied to the established success of their figurehead, Washington Irving by imitating his style of political humour and writing in the genre of the literary sketch.

He sent letters to British journals that reprinted his writings without consent or remuneration and hired legal counsel to protect his work in America.