Washington Irving's Moorish
Manuscript; A Columbia Rediscovery

ANDREW B. MYERS
 

B
 

URIED treasure in Columbia Library? Yes, for the skin-
diving scholar—and Spanish gold at that! Not pieces of
eight, of course, but pages of manuscript in Special Col¬
lections, three hundred pages of unpublished Washington Irving
manuscript, a history of the Moors in Spain. This descriptive
sketch brings the forgotten narrative up into the light for the
first time in long years.

What is there to see? Irving's "Chronicle of the Ommiades,"
to be exact, three hundred and three pages of dynastic history,
the epic story of Aludejar sovereigns who ruled much of the
Iberian peninsula for centuries in tlie early Middle Ages. This
seems a rich prize to recover and indeed it is, for it constitutes,
I believe, the largest unit of surviving Irving manuscript which
is still unpublished.

Close inspection does reveal some defects. These pages are not
ingots of pure metal, the kind from which his genius refined the
golden Alhambra (1832), the most brilliant of his books inspired
by Spain. They are more like a casket of exotic A'loorish jewelry,
some pieces perfect and precious, some plain, some unfinished,
some broken. But all belong together and show the attentions of
a master craftsman. With 1959 the centenary of Irving's death,
it seems time for them to be sorted, and some, or all, newly burn¬
ished and displayed.

This Ommiades manuscript was first put together in Madrid
in the fall and winter of 1827-28. Irving had come to Spain the
year before for the first time, invited by our Minister there, Alex¬
ander Everett, to consider the value of translating for the I'nglish-