Washington Irving 
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, The Spectre Bridegroom.Three Fabulous Ghost Stories from the ’Sketch Book’ 
With Numerous Contemporary Illustrations

Along with ’Rip Van Winkle’, ’The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.
’The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham ’Brom Bones’ Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of wealthy farmer Baltus Van Tassel. Ichabod Crane, a Yankee and an outsider, sees marriage to Katrina as a means of procuring Van Tassel’s extravagant wealth …