Letters of E. B. White (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: conning tower, deer mouse, trumpeter swan, North Brooklin, New York, Charlotte's Web (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Letters of E. B. White touches on a wide variety of subjects, including the New Yorker editor who became the author's wife; their dachshund, Fred, with his "look of fake respectability"; and White's contemporaries, from Harold Ross and James Thurber to Groucho Marx and John Updike and, later, Senator Edmund S. Muskie and Garrison Keillor. Updated with newly released letters from 1976 to 1985, additional photographs, and a new foreword by John Updike, this unparalleled collection of letters from one of America's favorite essayists, poets, and storytellers now spans nearly a century, from 1908 to 1985.

About the Author

A legendary writer for decades at The New Yorker and the author of many books of essays, E. B. White also wrote the children's classics Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan. He lived in New York City and Brooklin, Maine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (December 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061374598
• ISBN-13: 978-0061374593
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #71,564 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Transparent writing at its best, June 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Letters of E. B. White (Paperback)

Transparent writing consists of prose that doesn't tell; it is prose that shows. E. B. White is the master of this. His prose takes you where he wants you to be and, once there, shows you the sights, lets you smell the aromas and hear the sounds. A modest man, E. B. White claims often that writing for him is difficult and painful. Yet this collection of letters shows that from the beginning, Elwyn Brooks White had an innate ability to write simply, clearly, and charmingly. Whether he is thanking young readers for compliments, advising aspiring writers on writing, or berating a famous author for endorsing a product, he is witty, clear, and compassionate. Reading these letters you will think, cry, laugh, and even wince, but you will not frown in confusion as you wonder what the writer is trying to say. As a very beneficial side effect, reading E. B. White will often improve your own writing. Am I biased? You bet! Years of reading the stilted, jargon-laced writing of business, and the contrived, artificial efforts at "style" of many authors, reading anything by E. B. White is like talking to your best friend.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection of letters. Always inspires me to write., November 7, 1997

By	Jan Anderson ([e-mail]) (Hammond, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Letters of E. B. White (Hardcover)

E.B. White was a well known writer for The New Yorker, but I think his real genius was in writing letters to friends and family. He wrote about the ordinary and made it more than interesting, but fun. (His description of how to set up your room when admitted to the hospital is hysterical!) But he also wrote about hard times in life, his wife's illness, his own aging, death of friends and family. He wrote with honesty, clarity, and gusto. Letter writing (and READING a letter also) should never be a chore. Reading White's letters never is. I keep this book on the nightstand by my bed.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He Was The Best, December 21, 2008

By	P. Erickson "Fil" (St. Paul, Mn) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read all his letters. Several more than once. In doing so, I have come up with a list of positions that E.B. White took since the mid 1930s. Very few people can be right about everything. I think he was right maybe 99% of the time. (Don't know what the 1% wrong would be though).

1. He was against the isolationist stance promoted by the Lindberghs. White was against all wars up to this one, but he could not accept what Hitler was doing in Europe. He saw the danger and wrote about it. He was not the first one to write. There were many people who actually lived or traveled extensively in Europe during this time that spoke out first, but White was an eloquent spokesman against Nazis and isolationism.

2. He was a strong advocate of world government. He was the first writer who had a national forum to write on it. And he wrote a lot. For a time fully one-third of his editorials in The New Yorker were on that subject. It hasn't worked out as well as he had hoped, but much of that is because the United States has not backed the United Nations in the way we should have. Also, White was strongly against the veto power given to the major nations (particular the Soviet Union). Again, I think time has proven him right.

3. He was the first to criticize the House Un-American Activities Committee. And it was at a time when Congress, by a vote of 346-17, agreed to issue subpoenas to the Hollywood Ten. To come and support these 10 people and look directly into the eyes of 346 members of Congress and tell them "you're wrong", took a great act of courage. Unfortunately, there weren't many others like him at the time.

4. He spoke out against Joseph McCarthy even when Eisenhower was afraid to publicly do so. It was his eloquence and his ability to shape people's minds with his words that helped stop this political rock that was rolling down a very steep hill.

5. He was against nuclear testing. He was the first one to ever do so in an editorial.

6. He wrote extensively on the environment. He called attention to the many violations of city ordinances that prohibited belched, black, soft-coal smoke from entering our urban atmosphere. Between 1959 and 1960 he wrote 17 columns on environmental pollution that The New Yorker published anonymously under the heading "These Precious Days."

7. He was in the forefront against racial discrimination. He wrote this in Harper's Magazine in February 1941:

There are two moving picture theaters in the town to which my key (he was vacationing in the Florida Keys) is attached by a bridge. In one of them, colored people are allowed in the balcony. In the other, colored people are not allowed at all. I saw a patriotic newsreel there the other day that ended with a picture of the American flag blowing in the breeze, and the words: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Everyone clapped, but I decided I could not clap for liberty and justice (for all) while I was in a theater from which Negroes had been barred. And I felt there were too many people in the world who think liberty and justice for all means liberty and justice for themselves and their friends. I sat there wondering what would happen to me if I were to jump up and say in a loud voice: "If you folks like liberty and justice so much, why do you keep Negroes from this theater?" I am sure it would have surprised everybody very much and it is the kind of thing I dream about dong but never do. If I had done it I suppose the management would have taken me by the arm and marched me out of the theater, on the grounds that it is disturbing the peace to speak up for liberty just as the feature is coming on. .......It is conceivable that the Negroes of a hundred years from now will enjoy a greater degree of liberty if the present restrictions on today's Negroes are not relaxed too fast. But that doesn't get today's Negroes in to see Hedy Lamarr.