Happy Birthday, E.B. White

E.B. was born Elwyn Brooks White on July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York. Though his father owned a piano manufacturing company and there were always musical instruments around, Elwyn and his five siblings didn’t seem to have any musical talent. Instead, White showed an early penchant for writing. He published his first story, “A Winter Walk,” in a magazine for young readers when he was 12 years old. 

White attended Cornell University, where he acquired the nickname “Andy.” After graduation, he moved to New York and went through a series of unsatisfactory jobs in news, PR and advertising, before taking off for a brief stint in Seattle. In 1925, he returned to New York and had his first piece, “Defense of the Bronx River,” published in The New Yorker, formally launching his illustrious writing career and long association with the magazine. He also met Katharine Sergeant Angell, an editor at the magazine, and married her a few years later.

E.B. White was made a contributing editor at The New Yorker in 1927, an arrangement that lasted the rest of his life. While he was busy penning “Notes and Comment” and other essays for the magazine, he also had a column in Harper’s magazine about his rural experiences, published poetry and began writing books.

James Thurber, coauthor with White of the book “Is Sex Necessary?” once said, “No one can write a sentence like White.” White’s most successful books, “Here is New York,” “Stuart Little” and “Charlotte’s Web” came after he moved to a farm in North Brooklin, Maine. He also revised “The Elements of Style,” written by one of his old Cornell professors.

He earned numerous accolades and awards during his lifetime, beginning with the Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1960. In 1963, he was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and received the National Medal for Literature in 1971. In 1973, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation for his body of work in 1978.

E.B. White died of Alzheimer’s disease in Maine on October 1, 1985. Not long before his death, he attempted to address the many letters he received from young readers about the books he had written for children. Read the letter he wrote in response on TeacherVision.

Roger Angell, the renowned editor and baseball writer for The New Yorker, was also E.B. White’s stepson. He wrote a poignant encomium to “Andy” in The New Yorker in 2005.

Listen to a rare recording of White reading a passage from “Charlotte’s Web,” along with other illuminating interviews, including one about his beloved wife after her death.