Suspended animation in fiction which is indistinguishable from death. In American fiction, the first story to deal with suspended animation is the tale of Rip Van Winkle, a short story by American author Washington Irving published in 1819 as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. In the story, a British subject in the American colonies wanders into the Catskill Mountains in the years before the American Revolutionary War, and finds a group of fairies, whose moonshine he drinks. He then falls asleep for 20 years, and returns to his village in what is now the United States, finding his home town
Lester Van Winkle Lester Van Winkle Lester Gordon Van Winkle is an American sculptor living in Virginia. In 1967-09 Van Winkle earned a Master in Arts degree, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky. In 1964-67 he studied for his Bachelor of Science Degree, East Texas State University, Commerce, Texas, with a major in art and a minor in history following study 1962-64 at Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, Texas. Lester Van Winkle served on the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts for over 35 years and served as Chair of the Sculpture Department in his last year before retiring. He was