by Michael Sims
While writing The Story of Charlotte’s Web, I have accrued many debts. First, thanks to Robert and Mary Gallant, the current owners of the farm in Brooklin, Maine, where E. B. White and Katharine S. White lived, and to their son Robert Gallant Jr., who helped me get in touch with his parents. The amiable Gallants hosted a two-day ramble around their house and property and answered countless questions in person, on the phone, and via e-mail.
At Cornell University’s Carl A. Kroch Library, where I researched in the E. B. White Papers in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, everyone was cordial and helpful, but gratitude goes especially to Ana B. Guimaraes, Eisha Prather, and curator Katherine Reagan. Martha White, granddaughter of E. B. White and curator of his estate, graciously provided information, permissions, and contacts. Access to much of White’s printed work is available through The New Yorker’s digital edition of its entire run, every page of every issue since 1925, with a subscription to the magazine. I used it constantly.
My longtime friend Amy Garner Jerome has been cheering on this project since its inception, and I want to thank her, Aaron, Dahlia, and Satchel. Jon Erickson was helpful at every turn, as usual. Other particular encouragement came from Josephine Humphreys, Ross King, Denny Adcock, Jody and Barry Kammerud, Ron Watson, Michele Flynn, Collier Goodlett, Rebecca Flynn-Goodlett, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, and Ben Flynn-Goodlett. Thanks to Rhonda and Bill Patterson, in whose home and beach house I worked on this book. Several friends read and commented upon snippets of the manuscript, including Pamela Burdett, Laurie Parker, Mark Wait, John Spurlock, and several of the people already mentioned above. Thanks, as always, to Cesare Muccari and his fine staff at the Greensburg Hempfield Area Library, especially Diana Ciabattoni, Cindy Dull, and Linda Matey.
Last and yet first, because the book’s dedication is not enough to commemorate her, I welcome this opportunity to express gratitude and admiration to my wonderful wife, Laura Sloan Patterson, who shakes up my thinking and keeps my life surprising and entertaining. She has nurtured this book from inception to completion.
ABBREVIATIONS FOR FREQUENT SOURCES
(See bibliography for full publication information on cited sources.)
Cornell:
E. B. White Papers, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University
Charlotte:
Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White
Davis:
Onward and Upward: A Biography of Katharine S. White, by Linda H. Davis
EBW:
E. B. White
Elledge:
E. B. White: A Biography, by Scott Elledge
Every Day:
Every Day Is Saturday, brief New Yorker pieces by E. B. White
KSW:
Katharine Sergeant White, although at various times in the book she is known as Katharine Sergeant, Katharine S. Angell, or Katharine White
Kunkel:
Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of The New Yorker, by Thomas Kunkel
Letters:
Letters of E. B. White. Because of various editions, including a revised 2006 edition containing letters absent from the 1976 first edition, citations of letters are by date, not page number.
Neumeyer:
The Annotated Charlotte’s Web, by Peter F. Neumeyer
NY:
The New Yorker
Nordstrom:
Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard S. Marcus
OMM:
One Man’s Meat, essay collection by E. B. White
Points:
The Points of My Compass, essay collection by E. B. White
Second Tree:
The Second Tree from the Corner, essay collection by E. B. White
Stuart:
Stuart Little, by E. B. White
Wild Flag:
The Wild Flag: Editorials from The New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters, by E. B. White
Writings:
Writings from The New Yorker, 1927–1976, brief pieces by E. B. White
NOTES
xi “But real life” (book epigraph): EBW, Harper & Brothers flyer replying to letters about Charlotte, Cornell, Box 242.
Introduction: TRANSLATING YOURSELF
1 “I didn’t like”: EBW, letter to “Pupils of Grade 5-B, Larchmont, New York,” 26 December 1952, in Letters.
3 Fadiman … “the standing problem”: Clifton Fadiman, “Professionals and Confessionals: Dr. Seuss and Kenneth Grahame,” in Enter, Conversing (Cleveland, OH: World, 1962).
4 “This boy … felt”: EBW, “A Boy I Knew,” Reader’s Digest, June 1940.
4 “Remember that writing”: EBW, letter to Elizabeth S____, 10 December 1951, in Letters.
4 “I discovered”: EBW, letter to G. Deitch, 12 January [1971], in Letters.
6 “Where’s papa going”: Charlotte, ch. 1.
Part I: ELWYN
7 “Our rich experiences” (Part 1 epigraph): EBW, “Notes and Comment,” NY, 8 February 1936, quoted by Elledge, p. 21.
Chapter 1: ENCHANTED
9 “He lived a life of enchantment”: EBW, “A Boy I Knew,” Reader’s Digest, June 1940.
9 The birds were scurrying: EBW, “Was Lifted by Ears as Boy, No Harm Done,” NY, 9 May 1964.
10 The stable: Ibid.; stereopticon photos, Cornell, Box 221, especially Photo N3891; occasional details in letters and essays.
10 Jimmy Bridges: EBW, Introduction, Letters.
10 coachmen in the neighborhood: Elledge, p. 20.
11 loving mice and hating rats: EBW, “Sanitation,” Harper’s, in OMM.
11 “My dream farm”: EBW, “Fall,” Harper’s, in OMM.
11 collie named Mac: Guth, Letters, p. 15, n. 1; and countless notes.
11 pee into the coal bin: EBW, Introduction, Letters.
12 high-button shoes: See photo insert in Letters.
13 “My first and greatest love affair”: EBW, “Freedom,” NY, July 1940, in OMM.
13 built eight years before Elwyn’s birth: Elledge, p. 3.
14 leafy neighborhood, the scent of honeysuckle, etc.: EBW, Introduction, Letters.
14 their windows: Cornell, photo in Folder 220B.03.
14 carriages: See stereopticon photos, Cornell, Box 221, for surrey parked in drive, as well as horse hitched to it, and other photos showing carriage drive and side of house; scattered references to carriages in EBW letters (especially early) and essays.
15 tall windows on the third floor: See photo insert in Letters.
15 In the dawn he woke: EBW, quoted by Elledge, p. 16.
15 (soon nicknamed En): Elledge, p. 21.
15 Elwyn’s earliest faint memory: EBW, letter to Marion White Brittingham [April 1952] in Letters.
16 Little Lord Fauntleroy suit: EBW, introductory notes to Letters, p. 6.
16 suit precisely like Buster’s: Cornell, Folder 220A.07.
16 nicknamed Bunny (further shortened to Bun): Innumerable letters between EBW and Stanley, from EBW’s early childhood onward.
16 Stan also taught Elwyn: EBW, Introduction, Letters, p. 6.
16 To demonstrate centrifugal force: EBW, letter to Janice H. White [February 1979].
17 in early childhood, Elwyn became aware: EBW, “Freedom,” Harper’s, in OMM.
Chapter 2: FEAR
19 “I don’t know whether”: EBW, letter to Stanley Hart White, 11 March 1954, in Letters.
19 a handful of songs: Elledge, pp. 5–8.
20 “that there was an inexhaustible fund”: Quoted in Elledge, p. 15, who cites in his n. 25 for ch. 1 an undated obituary from the Register.
20 uncanny ability to remember: Ibid., p. 14.
20 painting might fetch five thousand dollars: Ibid.
21 beard of a Civil War general: See any photo of William Hart online.
22 For a formal portrait: Cornell, Folder 220A.15.
22 recovering from a harrowing ride: EBW, Introduction, Letters.
22 “All hail!”: Quoted in Ell
edge, p. 4.
23 trip to the New York Zoological Park: EBW, letter to John Tee-Van, 29 June 1948, in Letters.
23 extravaganza The Wizard of Oz: EBW mentions his memory of the play, particularly of actor Fred Stone, in Here Is New York; my description of the performance comes from The Annotated Wizard of Oz, edited by Michael Patrick Hearn, pp. lviii–lxii.
23 Once at the Hippodrome: EBW, “Hippodrome,” NY, 9 February 1929, in Writings.
24 supplied with musical instruments: EBW, Introduction, Letters, p. 3.
24 “I know eight pieces out of it already”: EBW, letter to Albert Hunt White, 21 October 1908, in Letters.
24 Every Christmas Eve: EBW, NY, 22 December 1928.
25 “I suffered nothing”: EBW, Interview by Frank H. Crowther, Paris Review, Fall 1969.
25 Elwyn loved weather: EBW, “A Boy I Knew,” Reader’s Digest, June 1940.
26 Lincoln School: Elledge, p. 21–22.
26 the Misses Kirby: EBW, “My Day,” Harper’s, in OMM.
27 “I pledge allegiance”: See Francis Bellamy, The Youth’s Companion, 1892. During the rise of the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s, the similarity of the Nazi oath to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance prompted the deletion of the salute from the American version and it was turned into a gesture of placing the right hand over the heart. In 1954 the U.S. Congress added to the Pledge of Allegiance the words under God, turning it into a public prayer as well as a patriotic oath.
27 The school: Cornell, Box 221.
28 intimacy of the bathrooms: EBW, Interview by Frank H. Crowther, Paris Review, Fall 1969.
28 A crowd of any kind: EBW, “A Boy I Knew,” Reader’s Digest, June 1940.
29 Meccano: Elledge, p. 15.
29 The eggs were arranged: Ibid.
29 swing wildly down on a rope: Ibid., p. 20.
29 he would call upon Freddy: EBW, “October,” NY 12 October 1929 in Every Day.
30 turtles lay eggs: In a section of his poem “Zoo Revisited,” in Second Tree, EBW reimagines himself as a boy named Olie Hackstaff, who learns from his friend Kenny Whipple that turtles lay eggs. Because the final poem closely matches EBW’s journal-like notes for it, and because it appears among other autobiographical scenes in an avowedly autobiographical poem, I have included this detail as an actual experience in EBW’s own life. Commentators agree that Olie’s friend Kenny Whipple in the poem clearly represents Elwyn’s friend Kenny Mendel, because of his personality and the menagerie belonging to both. EBW portrays a full scene with details that seem to me a bit too precise to be autobiographical, so I didn’t include them, keeping only the mention of the incident.
30 a cute mongrel pup: EBW, “Dog Training,” Harper’s, in OMM.
31 something … about being female: Ibid.
31 After Christmas 1908: Elledge, p. 22.
31 Sometimes Lillian rode: See photo insert, Letters.
32 sunbathed in the nude: EBW, “Cult,” NY, 20 June 1931, in Every Day.
32 he swam in the darkness: Ibid.
Chapter 3: TRUSTWORTHY
33 “This seemed an utterly”: EBW, “Once More to the Lake,” in OMM.
33 “Douse his head in cold water”: EBW, “The Summer Catarrh,” Harper’s, in OMM.
34 Inland freshwater lakes: Thorson, Beyond Walden, especially chapter 7, “Family Lake Culture”; Aron, Working at Play, especially chapter 6, “ ‘Unfashionable, But for Once Happy’: Camping Vacations”; Kammen, A Time to Every Purpose, especially chapter 3, “Nostalgia, Nationalism, and the American Seasons, 1854–1914.”
34 back-to-nature movement: Schmitt, Back to Nature.
35 lakeside camp on Great Pond: Elledge, p. 27; EBW, “Once More to the Lake,” and many other mentions.
35 “axehead capital of the world”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messalonskee_Lake_and_Stream.
35 The trip began: EBW, Introduction, Letters; “Once More to the Lake,” in OMM.
35 Grand Central was undergoing reconstruction: “Grand Central Terminal Opens,” Railway Age, September 2006.
35 Bar Harbor Express: Maiken, Night Trains.
35 seasonal night train: http://faracresfarm.com/jbvb/rr/run_thru.html.
35 last stops before Bar Harbor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Harbor_Express.
36 The family boarded the Express: Details about the White family’s summers in the Belgrade Lakes region come especially from EBW, “Once More to the Lake,” Harper’s, in OMM; EBW, letter to Stanley Hart White, 17 October 1935, in Letters; EBW, Introduction, Letters; EBW, scattered single details and recapitulations in various essays and letters. See also captioned stereopticon photographs, Cornell (especially Boxes 220A and 221), for details of cabins, canoes, outdoor lunches, clothing, whole family and family subsets in boats, activities, paths through woods, and so on.
40 Often Samuel interrupted: EBW, letter to Stanley, 17 October 1935, in Letters.
Chapter 4: A WRITING FOOL
42 “In those days”: EBW, “Coon Tree,” NY, 14 June 1956, in Points.
42 nature writers were lining up: Aside from more specific primary sources cited, see also Schmitt, Back to Nature, especially chapter 4, “Nature Fakers”; and Ralph H. Lutts, The Nature Fakers.
43 He enjoyed books by both Long and Seton: EBW, Interview by Frank H. Crowther, Paris Review, Fall 1969. In this interview EBW specifies favorite childhood authors but not titles; for both Long and Seton I choose what seem to me a representative volume from the era and describe what seem to be representative aspects of it. For influence of Long’s A Little Brother to the Bear, see EBW, “Coon Tree,” NY, 14 June 1956, in Points.
44 “To Plato, the owl”: Long, Ways of Wood Folk.
44 “Two things must be done”: Long, A Little Brother to the Bear.
45 “a pocket edition of Mooween in all his habits”: Long, A Little Brother to the Bear.
45 “emphasise our kinship”: Seton, Lives of the Hunted. See also anonymous review in The Nation, 13 March 1902.
45 “Lobo stands”: Seton, Wild Animals I Have Known.
46 “nature fakers”: Burroughs, “Real and Sham Natural History.”
46 “To absorb a thing is better”: Burroughs, “The Gospel of Nature,” Time and Change.
46 “I have reaped my harvest”: Burroughs, Introduction, Wake-Robin.
47 “We don’t in the least mind impossibilities”: Theodore Roosevelt, Everybody’s Magazine, September 1907.
47 “I was a writing fool”: EBW, letter to Judith W. Preusser, 10 November 1963, in Letters.
48 “Maine is one of the most beautiful states”: EBW, handwritten pamphlet; see photograph inserts in Elledge; see Cornell, papers of EBW.
48 “This is where I belong”: EBW, letter to Stanley Hart White [January, 1947], in Letters.
48 “I wonder … what I’m going to be”: EBW, journal entry, quoted in Elledge, p. 32.
49 writing down his day: EBW, Introduction, Letters.
49 a poem, “To a Mouse”: Elledge, p. 30.
49 St. Nicholas magazine: Gannon et al., St. Nicholas and Mary Mapes Dodge; Marcus, Minders of Make-Believe, pp. 55 ff.
50 “Glad to see us?”: See image of article, St. Nicholas magazine, November 1873, online at http://flyingdreams.home.mindspring.com/nickopeningpages.jpg.
50 one about Lincoln: See image of article, St. Nicholas magazine, 1912 (no issue date shown), online at http://flyingdreams.home.mindspring.com/nickbiooflincoln.jpg.
50 (“Next to its usefulness”): See image of article, St. Nicholas magazine, 1907 (no issue date shown), online at http://flyingdreams.home.mindspring.com/nickinventionhistory.jpg.
51 Faulkner: Blotner, Faulkner: A Biography, p. 39.
52 the name of the dog: Long, A Little Brother to the Bear, pp. 92–93.
54 “A True Dog Story”: Cornell, EBW Papers, Cornell, Box 222.
Chapter 5: LIEBESTRÄUM
55 “The only sense that is common”: EBW, “The Ring of Time,” Harpers’s in Points.
55 awkwardly translated Caesar: EBW, “First World War,” Harper’s, in OMM.
55 Naturally girls: EBW, Introduction, Letters; EBW, various essays; Elledge, p. 34 ff.
56 Somewhere out there in this busy world: EBW, “Getting Ready for a Cow,” Harper’s, September 1942, in OMM.
56 “To get in right with the girls”: EBW, letter to Stanley Hart White [14 May 1916].
57 Lillian … tried to teach him popular dances: EBW, “Afternoon of an American Boy,” NY, 29 November 1947.
58 Elwyn went along with her: ibid
59 greeted Eileen’s mother: All dialogue from EBW, “Afternoon of an American Boy,” NY, November 29, 1947 in Second Tree.
60 skating with a pretty blue-eyed girl: Elledge, p. 35; EBW, Introduction, Letters; EBW, “First World War,” EBW, poem “Zoo Revisited,” in Poems and Sketches.
61 in a blissful romantic haze: Ibid.
61 Elwyn was assistant editor: Ibid.
61 he reimagined Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s:
Elledge, p. 34
62 Most of his literary heroes: EBW, “Don Marquis,” OMM. An earlier version of this essay appeared as the introduction to Doubleday’s 1950 edition of Don Marquis’s Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel. See the index for information on Marquis throughout the text.
62 Don Marquis: Sims, “A View from the Under Side,” Introduction to Annotated Archy and Mehitabel.
63 “We came into our room”: Don Marquis, Archy and Mehitabel, or Sims, Annotated Archy and Mehitabel.
64 Elwyn admired the literate cockroach: EBW, “Don Marquis,” OMM.
64 graduated from high school: EBW, “First World War.”
64 “civilization itself seeming to be in the balance”: Woodrow Wilson, 2 April 1917, in a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C. The full sentence from his speech: “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.”
