Knickerbocker's History of New York, Vol. 1

In 1809, a young Washington Irving pulled off one of American literature's earliest and most brilliant publicity stunts. He placed fake missing persons ads in New York newspapers, desperately seeking a Dutch historian named Diedrich Knickerbocker who had vanished from a hotel, leaving behind a peculiar manuscript. When the notices failed to yield results, Irving (posing as the hotel owner) threatened to publish the manuscript if the unpaid bill wasn't settled. The public, unable to resist the drama, bought the book the moment it appeared. What they got was a magnificently bogus history of New York from the Creation to the end of Dutch rule, written in the stentorian voice of a pompous Dutch chronicler. Irving invented Dutch governors, battles, and customs with the confidence of a scholar and the straight face of a con artist. The result is a loving parody of stuffy historiography and a joyful celebration of New York's odd, multicultural roots. The satirical edge has dulled with time, but the comedy still fizzes, and the book invented a word that stuck: "Knickerbocker" still means New Yorker to this day.