Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (AmazonClassics Edition)

Top positive review

Great story, but watch which version you buy

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2019

Brilliantly written story. I remember reading this when I was in my 20s and being impatient with the beautiful verbiage - at that age, I just wanted to get on with the tale. Now, getting close to 70, I appreciated every word of this story, so your reaction to it may depend on your age.

I got lazy when I searched for this book and just bought the first edition that came up. For $2.48, it was okay with me. We were on vacation, had visited Irving's home, Sunnyside, and I wanted to re-read the story. Please be warned that version, with a dark picture of a horseman backed by the moon, is very poorly formatted, with page headings & numbers appearing at random. Some sections are 1-1/2 spaced, some double-spaced. Perhaps the book was scanned and not cleaned up? You can get this story for free, but whatever you do don't buy the $2.48 version. Granted, I could have returned it, but I had already read it, and again . . . lazy.

39 people found this helpful

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Donald P. Jane

What A Disappointment

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2017

This review is for the Kindle version of the Audible edition.

Though this work is considered a "classic" it must be only due to its age. It certainly should not be considered classic in the sense of being a good story. It is a short story and, I find it to be a disappointment. I could have certainly completed my life without ever having read this book. The language and vocabulary I found impressive. The story I find mediocre.

6 people found this helpful

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Mary B.

Great story, but watch which version you buy

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2019

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39 people found this helpful

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Gorilichis

One of the best!

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2019

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I've read this book in several editions, in English and Spanish, and the Audiobook performed by B. J. Harrison is excellent. My problem always was that I wanted to read the story in the fall, and picture everything while sitting in the autumn nature myself but, if I read the book, I couldn't really enjoy the environment. Well, with an audiobook I could really look at the brown leaves, the river and the trail I walk on, while listening to Ichabod's tale. Bonus points for the last part, which I listened to in the forest, at night. Extra spooky. This is one of the best ghost (?) stories ever written and I really enjoy it very time.

16 people found this helpful

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Venezia

Love all of it!

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2020

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I cannot day enough wonderful things about this Disney storybook and cd! First Of all the book itself is such a nice story and the pictures are great. My child and I first read the story and looked at the pictures. My child loves it. I loved the story and pictures, too. Then later in the day we read it along with the cd. We both LOVE the cd. It’s so much fun. Spooky but fun. Reading the reviews I was confused because it sounded like the book was for adults. But it is clearly made for children. Even young ones like 4/5. That being said I LOVED the book, pictures and LOVED listening to the cd. This is a great experience around Halloween. So great fir kids and adults equally. Highly recommend!!!

9 people found this helpful

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Desert Lamb

Those are 24 pages very easy to enjoy and as I read the story I ...

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2017

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The actual "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is only 24 pages long. The tale itself is very interesting and the descriptions are so delightful to read. Those are 24 pages very easy to enjoy and as I read the story I kept running images of the Disney cartoon version of sleepy hollow in my mind. However, the font is a little small for my taste. This book has 13 different tales written by Washington Irving. They are very tasteful Halloween tales that I would recommend, since they aren't gory.

30 people found this helpful

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Halloween

Once You Cross that Bridge My Friend- Brom Bones

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2019

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Even though this Isn’t Bing Crosby narrating this book it’s still Awesome! I’m a huge Headless Horseman fan and this is amazing! They use the actual photos from the Disney Cartoon! So that’s a huge plus! If you live this classic then buy this ! You won’t be sorry!

14 people found this helpful

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shanice Gilbert

Deep & thought Provoking

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2021

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Classic tale that reminds us that places and the people who occupy them are not as they seem. Wonderful imagery and an eye for literary detail!

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PlantBirdWoman

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: A review

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2014

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After hearing a discussion of Washington Irving's classic on the Diane Rehm Show earlier this week, I decided to re-read it in honor of Halloween. After all, it is relatively short and wouldn't require a commitment of an excessive amount of time, so it was something I could easily accomplish before the spooks and goblins descended on Halloween night.

It had been many long years since I first became acquainted with the story of Ichabod Crane and his encounter with the Headless Horseman. It was in elementary school, which, I suppose, is where many people meet him. (I don't know - do they still teach Irving in elementary school? For that matter, do they still teach literature in elementary school?) I remember being fascinated by the story then, especially by the wonderful language of Irving. On re-reading it, I found that it holds up quite well. It is still a great tale.

The story itself has now been retold so often and in so many ways - through movies, television, plays, music, even opera - that it is thoroughly ingrained in the cultural memory. Even those who have never read the story know it.

Irving wrote of Ichabod Crane, the lanky and lean and excessively superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut who had come to the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town in New York to teach. Specifically, he lived and taught in the secluded glen which had earned the name Sleepy Hollow because of the "listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants...A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere."

Dreamy the place may have been but it was also renowned for its ghosts and the many superstitions of hauntings that pervaded the imagination of the residents. And it was to this hotbed of belief in supernatural beings and events that the very jittery Ichabod had come.

Ichabod became obsessed with the idea of wooing and winning the hand of Katrina, the 18-year-old daughter of a local wealthy farmer. But he had a rival for Katrina's affections in Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, a local hero and merry prankster.

One night Ichabod attends a party at Katrina's family's home and, as he leaves, he engages Katrina in conversation but she rejects him. Morose and dejected, he sets out on the trail to the home where he is presently being quartered, but, on the way, he encounters many terrors and, finally, the ultimate terror - the Headless Horseman himself.

Ichabod presses the broken down plow horse on which he is riding into a reckless ride for his life but the Headless Horseman keeps pace with him until they finally come to a bridge next to the Old Dutch Burying Ground where the Horseman supposedly would vanish according to the tales that were told. But to Ichabod's horror, the ghostly apparition clambers up the bridge and rears his horse and hurls his severed head at the terrified pedagogue.

The next morning, Ichabod has disappeared. His horse is found near his owner's gate. The saddle is found trampled. And near the bridge where Ichabod and the ghost were last seen lies a shattered pumpkin.

Brom Bones, who "looks exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related," later married Katrina and, in a post note, we learn that Ichabod has turned up in another community where he studed law and become a lawyer.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was one of the earliest American tales to gain enduring popularity. It follows a tradition of folk tales involving supernatural wild chases, a tradition which includes such well-known classics as Robert Burns' Tam o' Shanter. Irving's tale is a worthy member of that club.

30 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Ghost Story of a Pedagogue

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2019

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I must admit the only versions of this story with which i was familiar before this reading were the Tim Burton feature and the Disney cartoon, which is surprisingly closer to the written version. The tale is of course about schoolteacher of Tarry Town, Ichabod Crane, and his ride of being chased by the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. The read of course does details more about Ichabod, including his fascination with ghost stories and fantastical folklore of New England, which does make him more impressionable.

The pedagogue, as he is frequently named, is a man who has an inflated sense of self-worth, perhaps because of how he is treated by the farmers and women in the village. Ichabod is a learned man who woos Katrina Van Tassel, a local heiress of whom we learn little, other than the plans Ichabod has for a future with her. I could not help but read this potential relationship through a modern feminist eye, as Ichabod didn't appear to see Katrina as a person beyond her appearance or her monetary worth, as he invented plans for a future that it seems he never discussed with her. Ichabod may be a well-read man who is respected among the people of the town, who has a good singing voice, and dances well, but he does not appear to know how to negotiate the romantic realm.

The "legend" of the story is obviously the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane's experience when he meets the Hessian while traveling back to town one very dark evening. As Ichabod becomes a figure of folklore himself, the facts of what happened are not fully revealed to the reader, though the narrator does leave it to be inferred. All in all, a good ghost story about a flawed man who may have become that of which he spoke of so often.

3 people found this helpful

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Reinold F.

A remarkable story (ABCD Classics edition)

Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2019

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Although I adore Tim Burton's universe I think I liked more this story in its original shape. The language is not that antiquated and I like how most of the story, most of the psychology of the characters, is hinted and not explicitly said. I like so much how Sleepy Hollow seems to be frozen in a very old time (old even for their contemporaries) as under a spell, that reality seems so skewed that the Headless Horseman is almost just another mundane addition to an anomalous place. But human nature is stronger than any fantasy and here what the story presents is rather the efforts of an outsider, Ichabod Crane, to use his charm to ascend socially. Either you follow fantasy, horror or a realistic chronicle I think this story will be a very enjoyable reading for you.

The price for the ABCD Classics edition is 99 cents, usually in other editions it's 2.99 dollars; I think 99 cents for a public domain story that you can read in what a few songs last is fair. There is no X-Ray and the design it is not that modern or clean but I didn't found errors so I think it is a fair price and a good edition.

One person found this helpful

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Kristi Schultz

beautiful if short

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2021

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A rather beautiful, if short, tale of the supernatural. One thing that struck me about the story was its lack of dialogue. It's almost entirely descriptions of the events and settings, which is very different from modern story telling. The lack of conversation can be a little bit off-putting.

My introduction to this story, and still my favorite adaptation, is the Disney animated version. The Disney version is actually fairly faithful to the original, though it plays up the humor, especially with the horse.

The short story is well paced, though the characters seem somewhat superficial. The eBook was formatted well with no obvious spelling/grammar errors.

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