Editor's Page

Abstract

In 1809, Washington Irving published A History of New York: From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. Based upon the title, one would assume that Irving was writing a traditional book on the colonial history of New York. Yet Irving was doing nothing of the kind. Instead, he decided to parody the historical profession and how historians wrote in the nineteenth century. Calling himself Diedrich Knickerbocker, and writing in a bombastic tone, in his fourth chapter Knickerbocker bemoaned his task: “What a hard life we historians have of it, who undertake to satisfy the doubts of the world! Here have I been toiling and moiling . . . up early and to bed late, poring over worm-eaten, obsolete, good-for-nothing books, and cultivating the acquaintance of a thousand learned authors . . . and after all, what have we got by it? Truly the mighty valuable conclusion, that this country does actually exist.”1 Although Knickerbocker was a fictional character, designed as a caricature of the pedantic historian, he nonetheless illustrated many of the challenges of writing history. Professional historians not only have to pore over “a thousand learned authors,” but like Knickerbocker they must find a way to pull together these sources to tell a cohesive story. Even today, with the rise of the computer, internet, and digital projects, the production of these works takes time. This issue of the Register, therefore, focuses on the preservation and writing of history, illustrating the challenges that historians face and the reasons that, despite these obstacles, they continue to write.