The story of Tom Walker is a variation on the legend of Faust, a l6th-century magician and astrologer who was said to have sold his soul to the devil for wisdom, money, and power.  Washington Irving reinvented the tale, setting it in the 1720s in an area of New England settled by Quakers and Puritans.  In Irving’s comic retelling of the legend, the writer satirizes people who present a pious public image as they “sell their souls” for money.