By far our favorite Irving site,
though, is his former home—now open to the public—“Sunnyside,” in Tarrytown,
New York, alongside the Hudson River. We’ve visited quite a few times—certainly
because of our interest in Irving, the first internationally popular American
writer, but also because it’s not all that far (about a hundred miles) from
western Massachusetts where my mom has been living in retirement and where my
two brothers have an old farmhouse they use for a weekend/holiday home. So we
can stop either on the way east, on the way home. Or both.
Irving bought the property in
June 1835 (added more land later) and gradually modified the house so that it
became what you can see today. When you tour, by the way, the docent will tell
you that you will experience no electric lighting in the rooms you’ll see. Outside
the west windows you can see the Hudson River—very close—as well as the rail
line that dates back to Irving’s time. He was annoyed when it first arrived to disturb
his bucolic retreat—but later he modified his opinion: He could get to New York
City and back (about thirty miles) in a wee fraction of the time it had once
required.
June 1835 was about a decade
after the events I’ll deal with next—the direct relationship between Irving and
Mary Shelley.
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| Hudson River & rail line |
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| ice house |
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