The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

“In a quiet valley along the Hudson River, near Tarry Town, there lay a drowsy hollow known as Sleepy Hollow.”

From the tale by Washington Irving

Washington Irving published this tale in 1819 as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. It is one of the first American ghost stories and remains a classic of early American literature. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. Irving sets his story in a Dutch farming community along the Hudson River in the years following the Revolutionary War, blending legend, humour, and a love rivalry into a tale that still delights readers today. The story raises a question it never fully answers: was the Headless Horseman real, or was it a trick?

Band

Green · Independent readers, earlyTypical starting range: ages 9–11

Length

medium · about 785 words in 5 sections · 3 pictures

Source

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (10 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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