The volume, which was first printed in Philadelphia, was put forth as a grave history of the manners and government under the Dutch rulers, and so far was the covert humor carried that it was dedicated to the New York Historical Society.  Its success was far beyond Irving’s expectation.  It met with almost universal acclaim.  It is true that some of the old Dutch inhabitants who sat down to its perusal, expecting to read a veritable account of the exploits of their ancestors, were puzzled by the indirection of its commendation; and several excellent old ladies of New York and Albany were in blazing indignation at the ridicule put upon the old Dutch people, and minded to ostracize the irreverent author from all social recognition.  As late as 1818, in an address before the Historical Society, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving’s friend, showed the deep irritation the book had caused, by severe strictures on it as a “coarse caricature.”  But the author’s winning ways soon dissipated the social cloud, and even the Dutch critics were erelong disarmed by the absence of all malice in the gigantic humor of the composition.  One of the first foreigners to recognize the power and humor of the book was Walter Scott.  “I have never,” he wrote, “read anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker.  I have been employed these few evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing.  I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me of Sterne.”

The book is indeed an original creation, and one of the few masterpieces of humor.  In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of conception, and joyous vigor, it belongs to the springtime of literature.  It has entered into the popular mind as no other American book ever has, and it may be said to have created a social realm which, with all its whimsical conceit, has almost historical solidity.  The Knickerbocker pantheon is almost as real as that of Olympus.  The introductory chapters are of that elephantine facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, but which is exceedingly tedious to modern taste; and the humor of the book occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate to our apprehension, though it perhaps did not shock our great-grandmothers.  But, notwithstanding these blemishes, I think the work has more enduring qualities than even the generation which it first delighted gave it credit for.  The world, however, it must be owned, has scarcely yet the courage of its humor, and dullness still thinks it necessary to apologize for anything amusing.  There is little doubt that Irving himself supposed that his serious work was of more consequence to the world.