&ldquo;The Legend of Sleepy Hollow&rdquo; represents Washington Irving&rsquo;s second comic masterpiece, a ghostly tale about things that go bump in the night. The specter in question here is the mysterious <i>Headless Horseman</i>, said to be a Hessian trooper who lost his head in a nearby battle. Each night he roams the countryside in search of it. The unlikely hero in this tale is Ichabod Crane, an itinerant schoolmaster, whose name suits him perfectly...<br />Written while Irving was living abroad in Birmingham, England, &quot;The Legend of Sleepy Hollow&quot; was first published in 1819.