The American author who invented the myth that medieval people thought the world flat
In short: Washington Irving was the first American writer to achieve international acclaim, yet his legacy is complex. While he championed a burgeoning national literature and gave New York its famous nickname, he also popularized the enduring, historically inaccurate myth that medieval Europeans believed the Earth was flat.
Born in Manhattan in 1783, Washington Irving rose to prominence in the early 19th century as an essayist and historian. After finding fame in England with his 1819 collection, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.—which featured his iconic tales Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow—Irving became a literary bridge between the United States and Europe. He was a tireless advocate for the professionalization of writing and lobbied for stronger copyright protections to shield American authors from the rampant piracy that had plagued his own early career.
Irving’s historical work, particularly his 1828 biography of Christopher Columbus, significantly shaped the American imagination. In these writings, he blended rigorous archival research with imaginative flair, a style now termed romantic history. It was within this narrative that Irving introduced the durable, yet false, claim that medieval Europeans widely believed the Earth was flat, and that Columbus had been the one to prove its roundness. Despite his scholarly efforts in Spanish archives, Irving prioritized narrative impact over historical precision, cementing a misconception that persists in popular culture today.
Beyond his literary contributions, Irving served as a diplomat, including a tenure as the American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s. His life was marked by a constant tension between his American identity and his deep affinity for European culture, a conflict that prompted him to write a series of western-themed books to prove his commitment to his home country. By the time of his death in 1859, Irving had established himself as a foundational figure in American letters, having mentored writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow while leaving a mark on the language itself, including the moniker Gotham for New York City.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Washington Irving
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