SOURCE: "Knickerbocker Literature," in The Nation, New York, Vol. V, No. 127, December 5, 1867, pp. 459-61.

This unsigned essay from 1867 provides a brief, first-hand look at the critical regard for the Knickerbockers and their writings, revealing how, only a generation after their own time, the writings of the Knickerbockers were largely forgotten or dismissed by the critics.

Fitz Greene Halleck, who left us the other day, was a writer whose works are a favorable specimen of what, speaking roughly, may be called the Knickerbocker literature. Of the school of writers which produced this literature it is true to say that it was composed of authors whom we all remember as forgotten. Their names are well enough remembered, but the present generation knows little of them except their names, that they very properly acknowledged Washington Irving as their leader and master, and that they lived in or about New York. Charles...