內容簡介
《The Legend of Sleepy Hollow》（睡谷傳奇）述說一位來自康乃狄克州、名叫「奕可柏．柯鶴」教師，他來到一個叫做「睡谷」的小村落所發生的故事。他在那裡遇到了一位富有農夫的美麗女兒「嘉翠娜．凡．陶蘇」，對她傾心不已。不過他有一個很臭屁的情敵，叫做「保洪．碰司」。在女孩家中所舉辦的一場宴會之後，女孩拒絕了他的追求，他只好落寞地騎著馬回家。在回家途中，他遇到了可怕的「無頭騎士」，這是一個幽靈，是革命戰爭期間敵方的一名士兵。在一場恐怖至極的追逐後，奕可柏消失了。睡谷的居民認為，奕可柏後來也成了村子裡的幽靈。
故事的情節有諸多背景，主要故事來自頗具權威的Diedrich Knickerbocker的文件，他是一個虛構的荷蘭歷史學家。劇情中的戰爭、鬼故事和迷信等，則透過村民陳述出來，此外還有一些故事來自奕可柏最喜歡的《新英格蘭的巫術史》一書。
《睡谷傳奇》是美國早期小說的典型範例，主要探討的是「新生國家」這種典型的主題：這種國家擁有豐富的自然資源，人們渴求金錢和財物，可以在廣闊的土地上自由來去、追尋財富；歐洲文明的移植；戰爭在人民的記憶裡猶新；還有，過去的迷信與信仰，仍盤踞在人們的心裡。
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1809) tells the story of a schoolteacher from Connecticut, Ichabod Crane, who comes to the small village of Sleepy Hollow. When he meets Katrina Van Tassel, the pretty daughter of a wealthy farmer, he falls in love. But he has a rival, the boastful Brom Bones. After a party at her house, Katrina rejects Ichabod’s courtship and he rides home dejected. On the way back he encounters the terrifying Headless Horseman, the ghost of an enemy soldier from the Revolutionary War. A frightening chase ensues and Ichabod disappears. The people of Sleepy Hollow believe that Ichabod’s ghost now haunts the village.
The narration runs on various levels. The main story is presented as an authentic account found among the papers of the narrator, Diedrich Knickerbocker, a fictional Dutch historian. The stories about the war, ghosts and superstitions are told by the villagers. We know also that Ichabod reads some frightening stories from his favorite book, A History of New England Witchcraft.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an early example of American fiction. It explores the themes typical of the newborn nation: greed for money and possessions in a country rich in natural resources, physical mobility in a vast continent where people can travel to seek their fortune, the survival of the European heritage, the memory of the war still fresh in people’s minds and their attachment to the superstitions and beliefs of the past.
共出版十餘本，分兩大套：
● Helbling Classics（經典英文文學改寫）
● Helbling Fiction（當代原創英文小說）
全系列皆隨書附贈全文朗讀MP3。
內文編排精美，採用彩色印刷，全文穿插精美插圖，單元設計豐富。
除了精彩的小說之外，另編寫有：
1.About the Author（作者簡介）：介紹作者，幫助認識創作背景。
2.About the Book（本書簡介）：介紹故事內容概要，幫助了解故事的背景與旨意。
3.Before Reading（閱前活動）：設計各種問題和活動，幫助暖身，啟發各種探討與學習。
4.After Reading（閱後練習）：設計各種深入的問題和題目練習，幫助復習內容，加深英語的學習印象。
5.Test（測驗）：有些讀本在閱畢之後，設計有各種測驗題目，包括文意測驗和英語練習等。
6.隨文討論：在故事行文中，另設計有針對內文情節的問題探討，幫助做啟發性的思考。
作者簡介
華盛頓．歐文 Washington Irving
1783年誕生於紐約一個富裕的蘇格蘭家庭。他在學校學法律，但興趣是文學。他從事律師職業後，開始為報紙和雜誌寫東西。他的文章和小說擅於諷刺美國社會的風俗習慣。紐約有很多來自荷蘭的移民，他在1809年出版的首部作品《紐約史》中便寫過這些移民的事。書中設定了一個叫做Diedrich Knickerbocker的虛構人物，全書透過其幽默的口吻來敘述。這本書受到熱烈的迴響，曾被評價為「第一本出自美國人筆下的偉大幽默文學」。
1815年，為了幫忙打理家族企業，歐文搬到英國。但企業經營不佳，歐文於是重搖筆桿。他最有名的小說，是1819年出版的《睡谷傳奇》和《李伯大夢》（Rip Van Winkle）。這些作品讓歐文在歐洲和美國聲名大噪。
歐文住過倫敦、巴黎和馬德里，他寫過小說、論文和歷史書籍，其作品像是《Tales of a Traveler》、《The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus》、《The Conquest of Granada》、《Tales of the Alhambra》。1832年，他回到紐約，十年後因為外交官的身分，他再度前往馬德里。他最後的餘生回到美國紐約州的柏油村（Tarrytown）度過，這個地方就是他在《睡谷傳奇》中所設定的故事背景地點。他並在這裡寫了《喬治．華盛頓的一生》（The Life of George Washington）。1859年，卒於此地，享年76歲。
Washington Irving was born into a rich Scottish family in New York in 1783. He studied law but literature was his real passion. While he was working as a lawyer, he started to write for newspapers and magazines. His articles and stories satirized the customs and manners of the Americans. New York was home to many Dutch settlers and Irving wrote about them in his first book A History of New York, published in 1809. This humorous account by a fictional character called Diedrich Knickerbocker was immensely successful and was described as ‘the first great book of comic literature written by an American’.
In 1815 Irving moved to England to look after the family company, but the business was not a success and he returned to his writing. His most famous stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, appeared in 1819. The popularity of these books made Irving a celebrity in Europe and America.
He lived in London, Paris and Madrid, writing stories, essays and history books, such as Tales of a Traveler, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, The Conquest of Granada, Tales of the Alhambra. He returned to New York in 1832 but ten years later he went back to Madrid in a diplomatic role. He spent his last years in America, in Tarrytown in the valley of Sleepy Hollow where he wrote The Life of George Washington. He died there in 1859 at the age of 76.
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