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[86] appear; but at this time Irving had the field to himself. The sketch book was the best original piece of literature yet produced in America. It was followed during the next five years by Bracebridge hall and Tales of a Traveller. In May, 1815, Irving had embarked for Liverpool, with no very distinct plans, but without expectation of being long abroad. It was seventeen years before he saw America again. The qualified success of the Tales of a Traveller (1824) led him to feel that his vein was running out, and he began to turn toward the historical studies which were to occupy him mainly during the rest of his life. Not long after his return to America, in May, 1832, the Tales of the Alhambra were published. In the somewhat florid concert of critical praises which greeted the book, a simple theme was dominant. Everybody felt that in these stories Irving had come back to his own. The material was very different from that of The sketch book, yet it yielded to similar treatment. The grace, romance, humor, of this “beautiful Spanish Sketch Book,” as the historian
Boston, New York and Chicago. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.
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