The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in Washington Irving’s “The Alhambra”

Record summary

Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra, published in 1832, records and reshapes legends of haunted palaces, enchanted spaces, buried treasure, and supernatural Muslim-Christian figures. While Granada is outside the core MENA geography, the collection is a useful comparative source for nineteenth-century transmission of Arabic and Andalusi apparition motifs into English-language travel literature. It also illustrates how an author’s literary framing can make folklore appear like travel reportage. Researchers should isolate individual tales and compare Irving’s notes with Spanish, Arabic, and earlier European sources.