Washington Irving was one of America’s greatest writers and is considered the Father of the American Short Story. He is best known for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, in which Ichabod Crane meets the headless horseman, and Rip Van Winkle, about a man who falls asleep for 20 years; both works are contained in The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published in 1819. Named after George Washington, Irving had many interests, including writing, architecture and landscape design, traveling, and diplomacy, but he is best known as the first American to make a living solely from writing. After many years of travel and life in Europe, he returned to America to establish his home in Tarrytown, New York, which he called Sunnyside Manor. In search of new writing material, he joined the Ellsworth-Bean government expedition to the American West, which included a 31-day, 350-mile circular tour of central Oklahoma, and in mid-October 1832 he camped in the area that is now Bixby, Oklahoma. The resulting book, A Tour on the Prairies, can be considered standard fare for students of Oklahoma history, and A Tour on the Prairies, Astoria, and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville were the first three popular books about the West in American literature. Irving also wrote a five-volume history of George Washington, Life of George Washington.