Washington Irving's tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman is American Gothic at its finest—equal parts comedy and ghost story, with an ending that refuses to confirm whether the supernatural was real or just a prank. Irving writes Sleepy Hollow as a place where Old World superstition persists in the New World, where education and reason prove no defense against whatever haunts the woods. The story's ambiguity is its genius. This American Gothic tale combines humor, horror, and folklore in early American literature's most famous ghost story.
 
 
 
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