Writings from the New Yorker 1925-1976

by E. B. White

  B. Other Books Edited or with Contributions by White

  “E. B. White.” More Junior Authors. Ed. Muriel Fuller. New York: Wilson, 1963, pp. 225-26.

  Foreword. The New Yorker Album. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1928.

  Foreword. The Second New Yorker Album. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1929.

  Foreword. The Third New Yorker Album. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1930.

  Four Freedoms. Ed. E. B. White. Washington, DC: Office of War Information, 1942.

  “I’d Send My Son to Cornell.” Our Cornell. Comp. Raymond F. Howes. Ithaca, NY: Cayuga, 1939, pp. 11-18. Reprinted in The College Years. Ed. A. C. Spectorsky. New York: Hawthorn, 1958, pp. 464-67.

  Introduction. A Basic Chicken Guide for the Small Flock Owner by Roy E. Jones. New York: Morrow, 1944, pp. v-viii.

  Introduction. The Lives and Times of Archy ¿ Mehitabel by Don Marquis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950, pp. xvii-xxiv.

  Introduction. Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katharine S. White. New York: Farrar, 1979, pp. vii-xix.

  Introduction. The Owl in the Attic by James Thurber. New York: Harper, 1931. pp. xi-xvi.

  Introduction. Spider, Egg, and Microcosm: Three Men and Three Worlds of Science by Eugene Kinkead. New York: Knopf, 1955, pp. v-vii.

  [Letter]. The Pied Pipers: Interviews with the Influential Creators of Children ‘s Literature by Justin Wintle and Emma Fisher. New York: Paddington, 1974, pp. 126-31.

  Preface. E. B. White: A Bibliographic Catalogue of Printed Materials in the Department of Rare Books, Cornell University Library. Comp. Katherine Romans Hall. New York: Garland, 1979, pp. ix-x.

  “Ross, Harold Wallace.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1964 ed.

  A Subtreasury of American Humor. Ed. E. B. White and Katharine White. New York: Coward, 1941.

  “A Teaching Trinity.” The Teacher. Ed. Morris Ernst. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1967, pp. 103-05.

  “Waiden—A Young Man in Search of Himself and “Concerning Henry Thoreau/1817-1862.” Waiden by Henry David Thoreau. Boston: Houghton, 1964, pp. vii-xvi.

  C. Articles

  For a listing of 2,190 articles White contributed to periodicals, see E. B. White: A Bibliographic Catalogue of Printed Material in the Department of Rare Books, Cornell University Library. Comp. {Catherine Ro-mans Hall. New York: Garland, 1979. This is the definitive bibliography of E. B. White’s books and articles.

  D. Collections

  E. B. White’s papers are held by the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York. The collection contains approximately 2,350 printed items; 1,275 manuscripts; 3,491 letters by White; 23,384 letters to White; and 5,500 related items such as clippings, photographs, films, and tapes. Researchers must obtain permission from White’s son Joel to study the correspondence (requests addressed to the Department of Rare Books will be forwarded for his consideration). Katharine S. White’s papers are held by Special Collections, Bryn Mawr College Library, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

  American Literary Manuscripts lists twenty-six other depositories together holding five manuscripts, 75 letters by White, and 19 letters to White: Wesleyan University, Yale University, the Library of Congress, Knox College, Boston University, Harvard University, Colby College, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the State University of New York at Buffalo, Hamilton and Kirkland College, American Academy of Arts and Letters (NY), Columbia University, Pierpont Morgan Library (NY), Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Ohio State University, State Library of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Middlebury College, the University of Vermont, and the University of Wyoming.

  The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections lists two additional depositories with letters either to or by White: the University of Illinois (Stanley White papers) and the Newberry Library in Chicago (Dale Kramer papers). Dorothy G. Lobrano in Letters of E. B. White indicates three more depositories with White letters: Stanford University, New York University, and the New York Public Library. A. J. Anderson in E. B. White: A Bibliography indicates that the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center has a typescript of a White play, “The Firebug’s Homecoming.” Library of Congress collections that should have letters to or by White include those of Henry F. Pringle, Irita Van Doren, James M. Cain, Janet Flanner, and Frederick L. Allen. Three other collections at Cornell besides the White collection should contain letters to or by White: the papers of Bristow Adams, Romeyn Berry, and Morris G. Bishop.

  II. SECONDARY SOURCES: E. B. WHITE

  A. Bibliographies

  Anderson, A. J. E. B. White: A Bibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1978. (This bibliography is particularly useful for its listings of secondary sources, such as book reviews of White’s books.)

  Hall, Katherine Romans, comp. E. B. White: A Bibliographic Catalogue of Printed Materials in the Department of Rare Books, Cornell University Library. New York: Garland, 1979. (This bibliography gives de-tailed information on each of White’s books and identifies White’s articles in periodicals, often by indicating from which words to which words are White’s. No secondary sources are included.)

  B. Biographical Items

  Bacon, Leonard. “Humors and Careers.” Saturday Review of Literature 29 Apr 1939: 3-4, 22.

  Benet, Laura. Famous English and American Essayists. New York: Dodd, 1966, pp. 119-22.

  Collins, David R. To the Point: A Story about E. B. White. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda, 1989. (Written for children.)

  Elledge, Scott. E. B. White: A Biography. New York: Norton, 1985.

  Thurber, James. “E. B. W.” Saturday Review of Literature 15 Oct 1938: 8-9. Reprinted in Saturday Review Gallery. Ed. Jerome Beatty, Jr. New York: Simon, 1957, pp. 302-07.

  Updike, John. “Remarks on the Occasion of E. B. White’s Receiving the 1971 National Medal for Literature, 12/2/71.” Picked-Up Pieces. New York: Knopf, 1975, pp. 434-47.

  C. Interviews

  [Lee, Bruce]. “Typewriter Man.” Newsweek 22 Feb 1960: 72.

  Mitgang, Herbert. “Down East with E. B. White.” New York Times 17 Nov 1976: C19.

  Nordell, Roderick. “The Writer as a Private Man.” Christian Science Monitor 31 Oct 1962: 9.

  Plimpton, George A., and Frank H. Crowther. “The Art of the Essay, I: E. B. White.” Paris Review 48 (1969): 65-88.

  Shenker, Israel. “E. B. White: Notes and Comment by Author.” New York Times 11 Jul 1969: 37, 43.

  van Gelder, Robert. “An Interview with Mr. E. B. White, Essayist.” New York Times Book Review 2 Aug 1942: 2. Reprinted in Writers and Writing by Robert Van Gelder. New York: Scribner’s, 1946, pp. 308-10.

  D. Critical Studies (Works for Adults)

  Beck, Warren. “E. B. White.” English Journal 35 (1946): 175-81.

  Blair, Walter, and Hamlin Hill. “White and Thurber.” America’s Humor: From Poor Richard to Doonesbury. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 437-47.

  Core, George. “The Eloquence of Fact.” Virginia Quarterly Review 54 (1978): 733-41.

  Cox, Richard. “Nonfiction in the Classroom: E. B. White’s Once More to the Lake.’” Conference of College Teachers of English Studies 52 (1987): 20-27.

  Enright, D. J. “Laurel—or Brussels Sprouts?” Encounter Apr 1978: 70-75. Reprinted as “Lifting Up One’s Life a Trifle: On E. B. White.” A Mania for Sentences. London: Chatto, 1983, pp. 185-92.

  Epstein, Joseph. “E. B. White, Dark and Lite.” Commentary Apr 1986: 48-56. Reprinted in Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives. New York: Norton, 1989, pp. 295-319.

  Fadiman, Clifton. “In Praise of E. B. White, Realist.” New York Times Book Review 10 June 1945: 1, 10, 12, 14-16. Reprinted in Reading, Living and Thinking. Eds. J. R. Chamberlain, W. B. Pressy, and R. E. Waters. New York: Scribner’s, 1948, pp. 180-91. Reprinted in Symposium. Ed. G. W. Arms and L. G. Locke. New York: Rinehart, 1954, pp. 329-35.

/>   Fuller, John Wesley. Prose Styles in the Essays of E. B. White. Dissertation, University of Washington, 1959. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1979.

  Grant, Thomas. “The Sparrow on the Ledge: E. B. White in New York.” Studies in American Humor ns 3 (1984): 24-33.

  Haskell, Dale Everett. The Rhetoric of the Familiar Essay: E. B. White and Personal Discourse. Dissertation, Texas Christian University, 1983. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1983. DEQ-07824.

  Hasley, Louis. “The Talk of the Town and the Country: E. B. White.” Connecticut Review Oct 1971: 37-45.

  Heldreth, Leonard G. “ ‘Pattern of Life Indelible’: E. B. White’s Once More to the Lake.’” CEA Critic 45 (1982): 31-34.

  Howarth, William. “E. B. White at The New Yorker. “Sewanee Review 93 (1985): 574-83.

  Lang, Berel. “Strunk and White and Grammar as Morality.” Soundings 65 (1982): 23-30.

  Martin, Edward A. “Out of the World of Nonsense: Ring Lardner, Frank Sullivan, and E. B. White.” H. L. Mencken and the Debunkers. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984, pp. 157-76.

  Platizky, Roger S. “ ‘Once More to the Lake’: A Mythic Interpretation.” College Literature 15 (1988): 171-79.

  Rogers, Barbara. “E. B. White.” American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement I, Part 2. New York: Scribner’s, 1979, pp. 651-81.

  Sampson, Edward. E. B. White. New York: Twayne, 1974.

  ———. “E. B. White.” American Humorists, 1800-1950. Ed. Stanley Trachtenberg. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 11. Detroit: Gale, 1982, 2: 568-83.

  Steinhoff, William R. “ ‘The Door,’ ‘The Professor,’ ‘My Friend the Poet (Deceased),’ ‘The Washable House,’ and ‘The Man Out in Jersey.’” College English 23 (1961): 229-32.

  Warshow, Robert S. “E. B. White and The New Yorker. “ Movies, Comics, Theatre ir Other Aspects of Popular Culture. New York: Doubleday, 1962, pp. 105-08.

  Yates, Norris. “E. B. White, ‘Farmer/Other.’ “ The American Humorist: Conscience of the Twentieth Century. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1964, pp. 299-320.

  E. Critical Studies (Works for Children)

  Apseloff, Marilyn. “Charlotte’s Web: Flaws in the Weaving.” Children’s Novels and the Movies. Ed. Douglas Street. New York: Ungar, 1983, pp. 171-81.

  Gagnon, Laurence. “Webs of Concern: The Little Prince and Charlotte’s Web. “Children’s Literature: The Great Excluded. Ed. Francelia Butler. Storrs, CT: Children’s Literature Association, 1973, 2: 61-66.

  Glastonbury, Marion. “E. B. White’s Unexpected Items of Enchantment.” Children’s Literature in Education May 1973: 3-11.

  Griffith, John. “Charlotte’s Web: A Lonely Fantasy of Love.” Children’s Literature 8 (1980): 111-17.

  Kinghorn, Norton D. “The Real Miracle of Charlotte’s Web.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 11 (1986): 4-9.

  Landes, S. E. B. “White’s Charlotte’s Web: Caught in the Web.” Touch-stones: Reflections on the Best in Children’s Literature. Ed. Perry Nodelman. West Lafayette, IN: Children’s Literature Association, 1985, pp. 270-80.

  Nodelman, Perry. “Text as Teacher: The Beginning of Charlotte’s Web.” Children’s Literature 13 (1985): 109-27.

  Neumeyer, Peter F. “The Creation of Charlotte’s Web: From Drafts to Book.” Horn Book Oct 1982: 489-97; Dec 1982: 617-25.

  ———. “The Creation of E. B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan: The Manuscripts.” Horn Book Jan/Feb 1985: 17. (Condensed from paper presented at University of North Carolina.)

  ———. “What Makes a Good Children’s Book? The Texture of Charlotte ‘s Web. “ South Atlantic Bulletin May 1979: 66-75.

  Rees, David. “Timor Mortis Conturbat Me: E. B. White and Doris Buchanan Smith.” The Marble in the Water: Essays on Contemporary Writers of Fiction for Children and Young Adults. Boston: Horn Book, 1980, pp. 68-77.

  Sale, Roger. Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.

  Shohet, Richard M. Functions of Voice in Children’s Literature. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1971. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1971, 72-00297.

  Solheim, Helene. “Magic in the Web: Time, Pigs, and E. B. White.” South Atlantic Quarterly 80 (1981): 391-405.

  Weales, Gerald. “The Designs of E. B. White.” Authors and Illustrators of Children’s Books: Writings on Their Lives and Works. Ed. Miriam Hoffman and Eva Samuels. New York: Bowker, 1972, pp. 409-10.

  Welty, Eudora. “E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.” The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays and Reviews. New York: Random, 1978, pp. 203-06.

  III. SECONDARY SOURCES: RELATED SUBJECTS

  A. Katharine S. White

  Davis, Linda H. Onward and Upward: A Biography of Katharine S. White. New York: Harper, 1987.

  Nerney, Brian James. Katharine S. White, New Yorker Editor: Her Influence on the New Yorker and on American Literature. Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982. Ann Arbor, UMI, 1982, DEP 83-08103.

  B. James Thurber

  Burnstein, Burton. Thurber: A Biography. New York: Dodd, 1975.

  Holmes, Charles S. The Clocks of Columbus: The Literary Career of James Thurber. New York: Atheneum, 1972.

  Thurber, Helen, and Edward Weeks, eds. Selected Letters of James Thurber. Boston: Little, 1980.

  Toombs, Sarah Eleanora. James Thurber: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. New York. Garland, 1987.

  C. Hamid Ross

  Churchill, Allen. “Ross of the New Yorker. “American Mercury Aug 1948: 147-55.

  Grant, Jane. Ross, The New Yorker, and Me. New York: Reynal, 1968.

  Kramer, Dale. Ross and The New Yorker. New York: Doubleday, 1951.

  Kramer, Dale, and George R. Clark. “Harold Ross and The New Yorker. “Harper’s Apr 1943: 510-21.

  Rovere, Richard H. “The Magnificent Fussbudget.” Harper’s Jun 1975: 97-100.

  Thurber, James. The Years with Ross. Boston: Little, 1959.

  D. Other Items on The New Yorker

  Bone, Martha Denham. Dorothy Parker and New Yorker Satire. Dissertation, Middle Tennessee State University, 1985. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1985, DES 85-23970.

  Gill, Brendan. Here at The New Yorker. New York: Random, 1975.

  Houghton, Donald Eugene. The New Yorker: Exponent of a Cosmopolitan Elite. Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1955. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1955, 00-13784.

  [Ingersoll, Ralph.] “The New Yorker.” Fortune Aug 1934: 72-86, 90, 92, 97, 150, 152.

  Kahn, Ely Jacques. About The New Yorker and Me: A Sentimental Journal. New York: Putnam, 1979.

  Kramer, Hilton. “Harold Ross’s New Yorker.” Commentary Aug 1959: 122-27.

  Maloney, Russell. “Tilley the Toiler.” Saturday Review of Literature Aug 1947: 7-10, 29-32.

  Morton, Charles W. “A Try for The New Yorker” and “Brief Interlude at The New Yorker. “Atlantic Monthly Apr 1963:45-49; May 1963:81-85.

  Rouit, Earl. “Modernism and Three Magazines: An Editorial Revolution.” Sewanee Review 93 (1985): 540-53.

  Studies in American Humor ns 3 (1984): 7-97 (special issue: The New Yorker From 1925 to 1950).

  Weales, Gerald. “Not for the Old Lady in Dubuque.” The Comic Imagination in American Literature. Ed. Louis D. Rubin, Jr. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973, pp. 231-46.

  About the Author

  E. B. WHITE, essayist, poet, humorist, and author, began his career as a contributor to The New Yorker in 1925, joining the staff in 1927. Over the years he wrote more than twenty books, including the children’s classics Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan, as well as countless pieces for The New Yorker, signed and unsigned. Among the many awards presented to E. B. White during his lifetime were the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism (1960), the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (1970), and the National Medal for Literature (1971). He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, and in 1973 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Books by E. B. White

  Poems and Sketches of E. B. White

  Essays of E. B. White

  Letters of E. B. White

  The Trumpet of the Swan

  The Points of My Compass

  The Second Tree From the Corner

  Charlotte’s Web

  Here Is New York

  The Wild Flag

  Stuart Little

  One Man’s Meat

  The Fox of Peapack

  Quo Vadimus?

  Farewell to Model T

  Every Day Is Saturday

  The Lady Is Cold

  Copyright

  All the stories, reports, observations, commentaries, essays, and reviews collected here were originally published in The New Yorker and are copyrighted. They are reprinted here by special permission of The New Yorker, which reserves all rights.

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1990 by HarperCollins Publishers.

  WRITINGS FROM THE NEW YORKER. Copyright © 1990 by Joel White and Rebecca Dale. Introduction and Bibliography copyright © 1990 by Rebecca Dale. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  First Harper Perennial edition published 1991; reissued 2006.

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

  White, E. B. (Elwyn Brooks), 1899-1985

  Writings from the New Yorker / E. B. White. —1st ed.