of Christopher Columbus." This was a much more serious work than
anything he had before undertaken. It was, unlike the history of New
York, a genuine investigation of facts derived from the musty old
volumes of the libraries of Spanish monasteries and other ancient
collections. It was a record of the life of the discoverer of America
that was destined to remain the highest authority on that subject.
Murray, the London publisher, paid him over fifteen thousand dollars
for the English copyright alone.

In his study among the ruins of Spain, Irving found many other things
which greatly interested him--legends, and tales of the Moors who had
once ruled there, and of the ruined beauties of the Moorish palace of
the Alhambra. His imagination was set on fire, he was delighted with
the images of by-gone days of glittering pageantry which his fancy
called up. Before his history of Columbus was finished, he began the
writing of a book so precisely to his taste that he could not restrain
himself until it was finished. This was the "Chronicle of the Conquest
of Granada"--a true history, but one which reads more like a romance
of the Middle Ages than a simple record of facts.

This was followed by four other books based on Spanish history and
legend. It seemed as if Irving could never quite abandon this
entrancing subject, for during the entire remainder of his life he
went back to it constantly.

When his great history of the life of Columbus was published and
proved its merit, Irving was honored in a way he had little expected
in his more idle days. The Royal Society of Literature bestowed upon
him one of two fifty-guinea[+] gold medals awarded annually, and the
University of Oxford conferred the degree of L.L.D.