Washington Irving (1783-1859), the first author from the United States of America to attain international fame, wrote the work originally known simply as Alhambra after publishing several other works including Sketch Book (1819-20), which established his literary reputation, and Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1829). The Romantic attachment to Spain that he had felt since childhood culminated in his residence, during 1829, in the Alhambra palace of Granada, and the first edition of the present work was published (in London and Philadelphia) in 1832.