Two Temple Place Letter" is represented by Hester Prynne and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The two remaining characters are Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and his daughter. At the feet of Rip Van Winkle is his dog and at those of his daughter is the gnomes’ keg of liquor, the drinking of which had sent Van Winkle into his long slumber and freedom from his bothersome wife for 20 years! The staircase hall is overlooked by a gallery that features statues made by Nicholls, having American literary associations, and a frieze in relief which features 82 characters from Shakespeare’s "Othello", "Henry VIII", "Antony
Washington Irving the offer down, opting to stay in England to pursue a writing career. In the spring of 1819, Irving sent to his brother Ebenezer in New York a set of short prose pieces that he asked be published as "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." The first installment, containing "Rip Van Winkle", was an enormous success, and the rest of the work would be equally successful; it was issued in 1819–1820 in seven installments in New York, and in two volumes in London ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" would appear in the sixth issue of the New York edition,