The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. & Other Scary Stories, Edition en anglais, Arthur Conan Doyle

WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859) was an American writer and diplomat. The youngest of a large family, he studied law and passed the bar examination (1806) after a two-year grand tour of Western Europe. A successful fiction writer, he also researched and wrote biographies of Christopher Columbus and of his own namesake, George Washington. He knew how to draw from local folklore and is now hailed as one of the first genuine American authors. His characters Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane are still household names in America. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh and studied medecine. He had an active career as a doctor and ophtalmologist, including volunteering in South Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902) and the First World War. It was for his brilliant creation of the first scientific detective, Sherlock Holmes (A Study in Scarlet, 1881) that he achieved great fame. He later converted to spiritualism and was a friend of the magician Houdini. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) was born in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). Orphaned very early, he was sent to live with his uncle and aunt in Virginia. His short novel Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) is considered the first modern detective story. Also known as a poet and indulgent literary critic, he was a master of the wild, the weird and the macabre.