[Piedmont-Marton is an educator and the coordinator of the undergraduate writing center at the University of Texas at Austin. In the following essay, she discusses the conventions of the narrative sketch as practiced by Washington Irving in “The Devil and Tom Walker.”]
“The Devil and Tom Walker” was published in 1824 in Washington Irving's Tales of a Traveller. It is widely recognized as the best story in the book and the third best of all his tales (after “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” ) Having established an international literary reputation, Irving had committed himself to a career as a professional man of letters, and the mixed critical reception that Tales of a Traveller received stung him badly. Modern readers of stories in this volume are often struck by the folk or fairy-tale quality of the narratives and by Irving's evocation of an older American landscape rich in symbolic texture.
Irving's career and work is best understood in the context of the enormous cultural and ideological changes transforming the new nation at the time. By the 1820s, the United States had concluded its second war with Britain, Lewis and Clark had already explored the West, and the population grew from a little over five million to nine-and-a-half million in the years 1800-1820. Still, 97% of Americans lived in rural communities. The country was poised for great change: By 1850 the population reached 21 million and the proportion of urban dwellers increased sharply. During these turbulent years, inventions that spurred industrial growth, like the steamboat, the cotton gin,...