Customer Reviews

E.B. White: A Biography

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He's so much more than "Charlotte's Web" or "Stuart Little"! Read a volume of E.B. White's essays first and follow it up with this biography, and then you'll know almost everything about the man and his work. Author Scott Elledge was fortunate enough to have corresponded and visited with White; this work is therefore as accurate and as personal as one can be. It begins with the birth of Elwyn Brooks "Andy" White in Westchester County, N.Y., and follows his path to the West Coast as a young man and eventually back to New York and The New Yorker magazine, with diversions to a farm in Maine. The chapters about The New Yorker offices are the most interesting to those of us curious about how that publication works. And don't take that "Elements of Style" paperback on your bookshelf for granted! (And who *was* Strunk, anyway?) You'll learn here why White got involved in that project and what work went into its revision.

This book includes more than 30 pages of photos, illustrations, and original essay drafts. It's fascinating to see White's penciled editorial changes over his own typewritten paragraphs.

Recommended for fans of E.B. White, fans of The New Yorker magazine, and writers of all genres.

The review below strikes me as unfair. Who DOES write like E.B. White? I thought Elledge's prose was decent, workmanlike, and unobtrusive. His scholarship seems excellent. Most important, Elledge is smart, respectful but not overawed -- he points out White's long immaturity and self-absorption -- and yet humane. (The more you delve into the world of biography, the more significant the last characteristic becomes.) He likes White and as a reader, you will too.

Mr. Elledge has done E.B. White and the author's admirers a terrific service. If you enjoy Mr. White's writings, then do yourself a favor and read this wonderful book. It helped me to better understand how the author evolved into one of the United States' greatest 20th-century writers. Though Mr. Elledge was an admirer of Mr. White, he remains a biographer at heart and does not shy away from exposing a few less-than-flattering aspects of EBW's personality. This book is not an edge-of-your-seat nail biter, but more of a gentle stroll with a good friend. Ultimately, Mr. White comes across as a decent, humble and authentic human being. I finished the book with a renewed respect for the author of Charlotte's Web.

E.B. White, A Biography, Scott Elledge; W.W. Norton & Company (1984)


Almost flawless in the first 300+ pages, Elledge then mysteriously lost his focus with a suddenly awkward & convoluted description of White's revision of "The Elements of Style" - a book that provides the guidelines for unequivocally clear writing.

White's "explanations seem never to ignore the limitations of our verbal aptitude or the recalcitrance of our language that makes the rules hard to follow."

"Elements" is about the rules & the art of writing - not oration ("verbal"). And since language can only exist after it has been given life by a writer or orator, to describe it as having the independent ability to be either cooperative or "recalcitrant" is, literally, incomprehensible.

And what editor could overlook a rodeo roundup of too many auxiliary phrases in one sentence?

"White aimed, he wrote to Jack Case, his editor at Macmillan, to 'give the little book an extra dimension' by saying 'a word or two about attitudes in writing...' "

Which, if "Elements" had been consulted, would have been revised as:

"White wrote to Jack Case, his editor at Macmillan, stating that he aimed to 'give the little book an extra dimension by saying a word or two about attitudes in writing...' "

It's a shame that this wasn't cleaned this up, because, overall, Elledge's points about "Elements" - & how White vastly improved it through revision - are new (to me, at any rate) & uniquely valuable.

For example, no one, to my knowledge, has ever come even close to his piercing explanation of why White's style of writing had been so effective:

"White's own sentences derive their power & grace from his habit of keeping subject, verb, & object close together in a tightly bonded, dynamic nucleus."

Nothing will surpass the sustained creative brilliance of "Genius In Disguise," the biography of Harold Ross, White's ebullient & creatively eccentric editor at The New Yorker. But "EBW" was equally a pleasure to read.

Great book for research paper on this author. Easy to skim over/read quickly. Good info on author.

...but, alas, he can't. What this book lacks in style, though, it makes up in detail. I just don't think it's quite a fair trade.

Found this today at the annual library sale for $1 and now that I have read the reviews on Amazon I am anxious to read it.