The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an American gothic novel written and published in the early 19th century. The novel is set in a haunted Dutch settlement in New York State in 1790. The people of the area are extremely superstitious and entertain themselves with ghost stories and supernatural tales. The most infamous of the tales is the spectre of a headless horseman, though to be a hessian mercenary who lost his head during the American revolution. After a party celebrating the recent harvest the headless ghost rider strikes at his next victim, are there supernatural forces at work, or cold-blooded murder.