Rip Van Winkle is the most agreeable man in his village - beloved by children, welcome at every hearth, always ready with a story or a helping hand for anyone except himself. His own farm crumbles while he wanders; his own fence sags while he assists the neighbors. One autumn day, hunting in the Catskill Mountains, he stumbles upon a band of mysterious Dutchmen at their ninepins, shares a pull from their keg, and closes his eyes.

He wakes twenty years later to a world transformed. The portrait of King George has become General Washington. His village has grown strange. His wife is gone, his daughter grown, and no one recognizes the old man with the foot-long beard who insists he was here just yesterday.

Washington Irving published this story in 1819, barely a generation after the Revolution, and its humor runs deeper than the fairy-tale setup suggests - a man sleeps through the birth of a nation and wakes to find he's no longer a subject but a citizen. This illustrated edition presents Irving's original text alongside artwork that brings the dreamy Catskills and Rip's bewildered return to vivid life.

A story about time, change, and the strange comfort of being left behind.