Knickerbocker Group

The Knickerbocker Group was a collection of three men, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant, who were American pioneers in the literary fields of general literature, novels, and poetry and journalism, respectively. Other talented poets, playwrights, writers, novelists, journalists, and editors joined this writer's club, dubbed the "Knickerbocker Group" after Irving's Knickerbocker's History of New York and pen-name, "Diedrich Knickerbocker".

In addition to Irving, members of this group included William Cullen Bryant, James Kirke Paulding, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Joseph Rodman Drake, Robert Charles Sands, Lydia Maria Child, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, and Nathaniel Parker Willis. Many were frequent contributors to the literary magazine the The Knickerbocker, under editor Charles Fenno Hoffman.