In the Unite Kingdom, Ireland and some fellow Commonwealth nations, knickers is a word for women's undergarments. George Cruikshank, whose illustrations are classic icons for Charles Dickens' works, also did the illustrations for Washington Irving's droll History of New York (published in 1809) when it was published in London. He showed the old-time Knickerbockers, Irving's fictitious Dutch colonial family, in their loose knee-length Dutch breeches. Consequently, by 1859 relatively short loose ladies' undergarments, a kind of abbreviated version of pantalettes or pantaloons, were known as "knickers" in England.