QUO VADIMUS ? or The Case for The Bicycle [Hardcover]

E. B. WHITE (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 219 pages
• Publisher: Harper & Brothers; fifth printing edition (1938)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000OTLUV0
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,131,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

E.B. White, the author of twenty books of prose and poetry, was awarded the 1970 Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his children's books, Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. This award is now given every three years "to an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have, over a period of years, make a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children." The year 1970 also marked the publication of Mr. White's third book for children, The Trumpet of the Swan, honored by The International Board on Books for Young People as an outstanding example of literature with international importance. In 1973, it received the Sequoyah Award (Oklahoma) and the William Allen White Award (Kansas), voted by the school children of those states as their "favorite book" of the year.

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, Mr. White attended public schools there. He was graduated from Cornell University in 1921, worked in New York for a year, then traveled about. After five or six years of trying many sorts of jobs, he joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine, then in its infancy. The connection proved a happy one and resulted in a steady output of satirical sketches, poems, essays, and editorials. His essays have also appeared in Harper's Magazine, and his books include One Man's Meat, The Second Tree from the Corner, Letters of E.B. White, The Essays of E.B. White and Poems and Sketches of E.B. White. In 1938 Mr. White moved to the country. On his farm in Maine he kept animals, and some of these creatures got into his stories and books. Mr. White said he found writing difficult and bad for one's disposition, but he kept at it. He began Stuart Little in the hope of amusing a six-year-old niece of his, but before he finished it, she had grown up.

For his total contribution to American letters, Mr. White was awarded the 1971 National Medal for Literature. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy named Mr. White as one of thirty-one Americans to receive the Presidential Medal for Freedom. Mr. White also received the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism, and in 1973 the members of the Institute elected him to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a society of fifty members. He also received honorary degrees from seven colleges and universities. Mr. White died on October 1, 1985.

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I Am In Chiffon, For It Is The Magic Hour After Bridge", December 11, 2011

By 

Don Reed "Don" (Cliffside Park NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quo Vadimus or the Case for the Bicycle (Essay index reprint series) (Hardcover)

Quo Vadimus? or The Case For The Bicycle, E.B. White; Garden City Publishing Co., Inc. (a 1946 reprint; orig. Harper & Brothers, with orig. copyrights 1927-38)

Another collection of short bursts of Whiteiana, unbeatable. My vote for Best Story is "Fin de Saison - Palm Beach," from the era when cynical society newspaper editors limited their reporting to the meaningless meanderings of wintering mega-wealthy socialites, starting each November & concluding around March:

"A lady from the lower middle classes had the misfortune to be stung by a Portuguese Man o'War while bathing this morning off the foot of Australian Avenue. She suffered severe pain in both 'legs.' The Florida press maintained a dignified silence."

Obtained while browsing in a wonderful odds-&-ends shop in Stonington, Deer Isle, Maine (population 1,152, 0.61% Native American), which had an entire shelf devoted to books written by White & other fine authors of the golden era of The New Yorker magazine [late 1920s-late 1950s].

I left a few behind for the next book lover. Just a few. They might still be there. Better hurry up & go get 'em.

Inexplicably, White's "Dusk In Fierce Pajamas," which leads off "Easy Essays On Hard Subjects," first failed to impress when it was featured in "Fierce Pajamas, An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker" (2001).

And yet, this time around, it was as if I had never read it, & loved it.

This explains how one's overall reaction to a badly assembled & produced anthology can actually alter your perception of the individual contents within it (see Amazon review of FP, "Cheap Binding, Bad Editing," David Remnick & Henry Finder, editors. Someone at the now-defunct Elaine's must have loved the idea).

What the reference to "The Case For The Bicycle" means remains a mystery. But it is not necessary to understand everything.

*****

Notes On 1946: Never To Be Seen Again, On Any Dust Jacket - "This book is printed from the plates of the original edition. The text is complete & unabridged. The low price is made possible by the elimination of original production costs & the author's acceptance of a reduced royalty."

All that, printed in the smallest type, is presented in a triangular format located at the bottom of the left inside dust jacket flap.