"Rip Van Winkle" was part of the first installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. to be released in the United States. It was an immediate success, selling enough copies to encourage Irving to publish future installments (each containing three or four pieces of writing), and to begin a two-volume British publication. The British publication was also a tremendous success, and Irving began work on a German edition. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. sold enough copies that Irving was able to devote himself to writing full time for the rest of his life. British critics, especially, were surprised as well as delighted to see that an American writer was capable of creating good prose. In an 1820 review for the Edinburgh Review, Francis Jeffrey praised the book's "great purity and Beauty of diction," and called the book "the first American work . . . to which...