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
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom made by the third century BC. And these facts were never forgotten in learned Western Culture." Principe goes on to say, "White tells of a brave Columbus who fought mightily for the revolutionary notion of the earth’s sphericity. And here he helps us out (damning himself) with a footnote that reads “W. Irving, Life of Columbus” Yes, indeed, this is Washington Irving of Rip Van Winkle and headless horseman fame, who wrote a fictionalized account of Columbus in 1838. Yet White uses it as a historical source. This is an error of critical judgement." Principe sums up White's book this