Sure, it’s true that we’re not even into the official start of summer, which happens later this month (on June 21, to be precise), but when you’re a horror fan there’s never really a bad time to start thinking about October—the Spooky Season.
Bad post-title “head” puns aside, if you’re a lover of all things horror and Halloween, it should come as no surprise that what we’re talking about here is the latest addition to our SWC Horror Bites imprint: the classic spookfest The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving!
First published in 1820, in the Irving short story collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., the tale of schoolteacher Ichabod Crane, socialite Katrina Van Tassel, town bully Brom Bones, and the ghostly Hessian soldier who constantly rides in search of a replacement noggin is known around the world and is considered one of the quintessential stories to get you in the right mood for Halloween. It’s inspired countless movies, TV shows, cartoons, comic books, and novels—and this year it celebrates its 200th anniversary!
There’s also a bit of serendipity involved in this selection: Irving lived on an estate in Tarrytown, NY that he named Sunnyside—and the ’Warp Central offices are based in Sunnyside, NY! For the Horseman, why, it’s almost like coming home. (We’ll keep the doors locked, though, should he come by to visit.)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow goes on sale October 13, 2020. Stay tuned for further news!
(Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the image up top is a photograph I took of a Headless Horseman sculpture at the October 2016 Great Jack-O-Lantern Blaze in upstate New York. Nice work they did, right?)
