In the sleepy Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, lanky schoolmaster Ichabod Crane courts the wealthy Katrina Van Tassel and finds himself in rivalry with the town's brawny favorite, Brom Bones — all while the Hollow's local legend, a Hessian trooper who lost his head to a cannonball and now rides the night roads searching for a replacement, looms over every late walk home. Washington Irving's 1820 tale gave America one of its first and most enduring ghost stories, a sly comic legend that turns an autumn night's walk into pure suspense, building to a chase that has haunted readers for two centuries. One of the true founding texts of American fiction.