Statue of Washington Irving

Before you stands the man to whom the Alhambra owes much of its worldwide fame. Washington Irving (1783-1859), a writer born in New York, came to Spain in 1826, attached to his country’s legation, to work on documents about Columbus. In 1829 he travelled through Andalusia and, for a few months that year, managed to lodge in the palaces themselves, then half abandoned and home to poor families.

1A book made of voices

There he listened to the stories of the people living among the ruins, above all those of his guide and servant, Mateo Jiménez. With them, and with what he read in the university library, he wrote The Alhambra, published in 1832 in Philadelphia and London and known in English as Tales of the Alhambra. The book mixes travel diary and storytelling: the legend of the Arabian astrologer, the three beautiful princesses locked in a tower, the legacy of the Moor and the water carrier who found a treasure, or the rose of the Alhambra.

Irving did not invent the Alhambra, but he did invent the Romantic image that thousands of travellers came looking for.

Translated into countless languages, the book drew visitors from all over the world and helped people value a monument then suffering from looting and neglect. That is why the Patronato de la Alhambra honoured him in 2009, on the 150th anniversary of his death, with this sculpture by Julio López, unveiled on 30 December that year.

A word of caution about the tales: they are literature. Irving reworked oral traditions, added touches of his own and never set out to write history.

2What to look for

• The book he holds in his hand.
• The suitcase and the plaque with his dates, at his feet.
• The inscription ‘Hijo de la Alhambra’, ‘Son of the Alhambra’, moulded on the base.