Bret Harte was a writer and poet who was born in Maine in 1836 and died in California in 1902. He is best known for his stories set in the American West.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving was published in 1820. It is a classic tale about Ichabod Crane, who has a run-in with a ghostly headless horseman.
Harte’s parody of this story is entitled “The Reverie of Poor Horatio.” In this parody, Ichabod Crane is transformed into a bumbling, incompetent character who lives in a small town called Sleepy Hollow. He falls asleep under an apple tree and dreams that he is being chased by the Headless Horseman. When he wakes up, it turns out that he has been chasing his own shadow!
Bret Harte’s parody was first published in 1871.
