The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving set this 1820 story in a drowsy Dutch settlement along the Hudson, a place so steeped in old-world superstition that its very air seems to breed ghost tales. Ichabod Crane, a gawky, greedy schoolmaster with an appetite for the uncanny, sets his heart on Katrina Van Tassel and the fine farm she stands to inherit. His rival, the boisterous Brom Bones, has other plans. When Ichabod rides home alone after a harvest party thick with talk of the Headless Horseman, the night hands him a fright he never recovers from. Sly, atmospheric, and quietly comic, it stands among the founding works of American folklore. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.