Posted on Jul 11, 2018
E. B. White Biography - life, family, children, parents, name, story, death, wife, young
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On July 11, 1899, E. B. White, American writer ("Charlotte's Web" and "Elements of Style"), was born in Mount Vernon, New York (d. 1985).
From the article:
"In 1945 White entered a new field with great success, writing Stuart Little for children. The story of a mouse born to normal human parents was clearly intended to console young people who thought themselves different or odd, and it carried the message that Stuart's parents never batted an eye when their son turned out to be a mouse and that the hero could build himself a good life.
After The Wild Flag in 1946 and Here Is New York in 1949, White returned to children's literature with his most popular book in the genre (category), Charlotte's Web, in 1952. The story of the bond between the young pig Wilbur and the clever spider who saves his life is a look at the power of friendship and a reminder to young readers that death is a part of life. The Second Tree from the Corner came in 1954. Three years later White and his wife gave up their New York City apartment and moved permanently to North Brooklin, Maine.
Elements of Style
While an undergraduate at Cornell, White had taken a course with Professor William S. Strunk Jr. Strunk used a text he had written and published at his own expense, a thin volume titled The Elements of Style. White edited it, revised it, and added the chapter "An Approach to Style," offering such advice as "Place yourself in the background; do not explain too much; prefer the standard to the offbeat." The book sold widely and became a college campus fixture for the next twenty years in several editions.
Honors began to pour in for White. He won the Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1960, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his children's books in 1970, and the National Medal for Literature in 1971. In 1973 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
E. B. White's influence was great, particularly in his popular essays, which served as models for two generations of readers. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the New Yorker was judged by critics to be a model of elegant yet simple style in nonfiction, and White was in no small measure responsible for this reputation. He died on October 1, 1985, in North Brooklin, Maine."
From the article:
"In 1945 White entered a new field with great success, writing Stuart Little for children. The story of a mouse born to normal human parents was clearly intended to console young people who thought themselves different or odd, and it carried the message that Stuart's parents never batted an eye when their son turned out to be a mouse and that the hero could build himself a good life.
After The Wild Flag in 1946 and Here Is New York in 1949, White returned to children's literature with his most popular book in the genre (category), Charlotte's Web, in 1952. The story of the bond between the young pig Wilbur and the clever spider who saves his life is a look at the power of friendship and a reminder to young readers that death is a part of life. The Second Tree from the Corner came in 1954. Three years later White and his wife gave up their New York City apartment and moved permanently to North Brooklin, Maine.
Elements of Style
While an undergraduate at Cornell, White had taken a course with Professor William S. Strunk Jr. Strunk used a text he had written and published at his own expense, a thin volume titled The Elements of Style. White edited it, revised it, and added the chapter "An Approach to Style," offering such advice as "Place yourself in the background; do not explain too much; prefer the standard to the offbeat." The book sold widely and became a college campus fixture for the next twenty years in several editions.
Honors began to pour in for White. He won the Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1960, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his children's books in 1970, and the National Medal for Literature in 1971. In 1973 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
E. B. White's influence was great, particularly in his popular essays, which served as models for two generations of readers. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the New Yorker was judged by critics to be a model of elegant yet simple style in nonfiction, and White was in no small measure responsible for this reputation. He died on October 1, 1985, in North Brooklin, Maine."
E. B. White Biography - life, family, children, parents, name, story, death, wife, young
Posted from notablebiographies.com
American History
Writing
Writing and Editing
Literature
Children
Posted >1 y ago
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A tribute to E.B. White's three most famous children's books.
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that July 11 is the anniversary of the birth of American writer Elwyn Brooks White who preferred to uses his initial E.B. White as he authored the children's classics "Stuart Little" and "Charlotte's Web" and the adult-focused "Elements of Style."
He was a very talented author, lover of dogs and poignantly he wrestled with Alzheimer's Disease with grace and dignity at the end of his life.
Rest in peace Elwyn Brooks White!
Image: E.B. White with a dog.
Background from
"Born on July 11, 1899 in Mount Vernon, New York, E.B. White wrote books, essays, and poems for both children and adults. Although you’ve probably read (and re-read) his books Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, there’s so much more to learn about White. In honor of his birthday, here are 10 things you might not know about the author of some of the most beloved children’s books of all time.
1. HE WENT BY ANDY.
Although children around the world know him as E.B. White, his friends and family called him Andy for most of his life. Born Elwyn Brooks White on July 11, 1899, he got the nickname Andy when he went to college at Cornell University. He shared a last name with Andrew Dickson White, the co-founder and first president of Cornell, and Cornell tradition dictated that all students with the last name White were given the nickname Andy. This suited Elwyn just fine; he once said, "I never liked Elwyn. My mother just hung it on me because she'd run out of names. I was her sixth child." It stuck, and he went by Andy for the rest of his life.
2. HE DEEPLY LOVED DOGS.
White’s love of animals is evident in his writing, and his dog Daisy was no exception. In 1932, he wrote an obituary for Daisy after a New York City cab hit her in front of a florist’s shop on University Place. Published in The New Yorker, the obituary describes Daisy’s life, from her birth to her untimely death at 3 years old: “Her life was full of incident but not of accomplishment … Once she slipped her leash and chased a horse for three blocks through heavy traffic, in the carking belief that she was an effective agent against horses … She died sniffing life, and enjoying it.”
3. HIS EDITOR AT THE NEW YORKER BECAME HIS WIFE.
White began writing for The New Yorker in the mid 1920s. In 1926, he met Katharine Sergeant Angell, the magazine's fiction editor. Reminiscing about his first meeting with Katharine in the lobby of the magazine, he told The New York Times that she "had a lot of black hair and was very beautiful." Six years older than White, Katharine was a divorced mother with two kids, but the couple married in 1929 and eventually moved to a farmhouse in Maine.
"I soon realized I had made no mistake in my choice of a wife," White later said. "I was helping her pack an overnight bag one afternoon when she said, 'Put in some tooth twine.' I knew then that a girl who called dental floss tooth twine was the girl for me." Katharine continued to work remotely for The New Yorker, and the two were married until her death in 1977.
4. HIS STYLE GUIDE FOR WRITERS BECAME A HUGE SUCCESS.
The Elements of Style, a book that teaches people how to write effectively, clearly, and succinctly, is arguably the most famous writer’s bible in America. White’s English professor at Cornell, William Strunk Jr., originally wrote the book’s rules of grammar and composition in 1918. In 1959, White revised the book, and it has since sold millions of copies. In an interview with The Paris Review, White said: "My role in the revival of Strunk’s book was a fluke—just something I took on because I was not doing anything else at the time. It cost me a year out of my life, so little did I know about grammar."
5. HE WAS A HYPOCHONDRIAC …
Throughout his life, White was a hypochondriac who worried that, for example, his sunburn was a brain tumor or an ant bite was fatal. In a piece for The New Yorker, his stepson, Roger Angell, posits that White’s anxieties were due to his childhood. White was the youngest of six kids (his parents were in their 40s when he was born), so minor ailments—such as a cough or stomachache—would likely elicit more parental attention and nurturing as the cherished baby of the family.
6. … AND HE STRUGGLED WITH ANXIETY HIS WHOLE LIFE.
In addition to his hypochondria, White suffered from a general anxiety that began in childhood. He described himself as "frightened but not unhappy … I lacked for nothing except confidence." As an adult, he was anxious about subways crashing, meeting new people, and speaking in public. At restaurants, he was overly cautious about accidentally eating clams (he claimed one had poisoned him once). He skipped weddings, parties, his Presidential Medal of Freedom awards ceremony, and even his wife’s (private) burial service, describing his anxiety as a "peculiar kind of disability."
7. HE LOVED SAILING.
Despite his massive success as a writer, White disliked reading indoors, much preferring outdoor activities. "I am restless and would rather sail a boat than crack a book," he remarked. That is, unless that book was about one of his favorite topics: sailing. “But when I latch onto a book like They Live by the Wind, by Wendell P. Bradley, I am glued tight to the chair. It is because Bradley wrote about something that has always fascinated (and uplifted) me—sailing." White injected his love of sailing into his book Stuart Little, which contains a sailboat race, and his son Joel became a world-renowned boat designer. Once, Joel made a boat named in honor of his daughter Martha, and White carved four dolphins on each side of the bow and sailed it afterward.
8. HE FOUGHT TO KEEP HOLLYWOOD’S CHARLOTTE’S WEB CARTOON TRUE TO THE BOOK.
In 1973, the animation studio Hanna-Barbera released an animated musical film version of Charlotte’s Web. The studio wanted to change the book’s ending by not having Charlotte die, but White pushed back against a happier ending. Although the studio obliged, White and his wife reportedly hated the animated Charlotte’s Web, regretting that it was made and calling it a travesty.
9. HE STRUGGLED WITH PROCRASTINATION.
White was open about his struggles with writing and procrastination. In an interview, he revealed that he would walk around his house, straightening picture frames and rugs, before sitting down to write. "Delay is natural to a writer," White admitted. But he cautioned that writers have to somehow conquer procrastination: "A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper."
10. HE FOUGHT ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE WITH GRACE AND HUMOR.
Before White died in October 1985, he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. His son read his father’s books and essays aloud, and White usually enjoyed hearing his writing. Because he didn’t remember that he was the author of the words, he would pooh-pooh some passages, saying that the writing wasn’t good enough. But when he liked other passages, he would ask his son, Joel, who wrote the words. "You did, Dad," Joel said. White replied, "Well, not bad."
A tribute to E.B. White's three most famous children's books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOQLrJDiH8k
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SSG John Ross SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins Cpl Gabriel F. Cynthia Croft
He was a very talented author, lover of dogs and poignantly he wrestled with Alzheimer's Disease with grace and dignity at the end of his life.
Rest in peace Elwyn Brooks White!
Image: E.B. White with a dog.
Background from
"Born on July 11, 1899 in Mount Vernon, New York, E.B. White wrote books, essays, and poems for both children and adults. Although you’ve probably read (and re-read) his books Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, there’s so much more to learn about White. In honor of his birthday, here are 10 things you might not know about the author of some of the most beloved children’s books of all time.
1. HE WENT BY ANDY.
Although children around the world know him as E.B. White, his friends and family called him Andy for most of his life. Born Elwyn Brooks White on July 11, 1899, he got the nickname Andy when he went to college at Cornell University. He shared a last name with Andrew Dickson White, the co-founder and first president of Cornell, and Cornell tradition dictated that all students with the last name White were given the nickname Andy. This suited Elwyn just fine; he once said, "I never liked Elwyn. My mother just hung it on me because she'd run out of names. I was her sixth child." It stuck, and he went by Andy for the rest of his life.
2. HE DEEPLY LOVED DOGS.
White’s love of animals is evident in his writing, and his dog Daisy was no exception. In 1932, he wrote an obituary for Daisy after a New York City cab hit her in front of a florist’s shop on University Place. Published in The New Yorker, the obituary describes Daisy’s life, from her birth to her untimely death at 3 years old: “Her life was full of incident but not of accomplishment … Once she slipped her leash and chased a horse for three blocks through heavy traffic, in the carking belief that she was an effective agent against horses … She died sniffing life, and enjoying it.”
3. HIS EDITOR AT THE NEW YORKER BECAME HIS WIFE.
White began writing for The New Yorker in the mid 1920s. In 1926, he met Katharine Sergeant Angell, the magazine's fiction editor. Reminiscing about his first meeting with Katharine in the lobby of the magazine, he told The New York Times that she "had a lot of black hair and was very beautiful." Six years older than White, Katharine was a divorced mother with two kids, but the couple married in 1929 and eventually moved to a farmhouse in Maine.
"I soon realized I had made no mistake in my choice of a wife," White later said. "I was helping her pack an overnight bag one afternoon when she said, 'Put in some tooth twine.' I knew then that a girl who called dental floss tooth twine was the girl for me." Katharine continued to work remotely for The New Yorker, and the two were married until her death in 1977.
4. HIS STYLE GUIDE FOR WRITERS BECAME A HUGE SUCCESS.
The Elements of Style, a book that teaches people how to write effectively, clearly, and succinctly, is arguably the most famous writer’s bible in America. White’s English professor at Cornell, William Strunk Jr., originally wrote the book’s rules of grammar and composition in 1918. In 1959, White revised the book, and it has since sold millions of copies. In an interview with The Paris Review, White said: "My role in the revival of Strunk’s book was a fluke—just something I took on because I was not doing anything else at the time. It cost me a year out of my life, so little did I know about grammar."
5. HE WAS A HYPOCHONDRIAC …
Throughout his life, White was a hypochondriac who worried that, for example, his sunburn was a brain tumor or an ant bite was fatal. In a piece for The New Yorker, his stepson, Roger Angell, posits that White’s anxieties were due to his childhood. White was the youngest of six kids (his parents were in their 40s when he was born), so minor ailments—such as a cough or stomachache—would likely elicit more parental attention and nurturing as the cherished baby of the family.
6. … AND HE STRUGGLED WITH ANXIETY HIS WHOLE LIFE.
In addition to his hypochondria, White suffered from a general anxiety that began in childhood. He described himself as "frightened but not unhappy … I lacked for nothing except confidence." As an adult, he was anxious about subways crashing, meeting new people, and speaking in public. At restaurants, he was overly cautious about accidentally eating clams (he claimed one had poisoned him once). He skipped weddings, parties, his Presidential Medal of Freedom awards ceremony, and even his wife’s (private) burial service, describing his anxiety as a "peculiar kind of disability."
7. HE LOVED SAILING.
Despite his massive success as a writer, White disliked reading indoors, much preferring outdoor activities. "I am restless and would rather sail a boat than crack a book," he remarked. That is, unless that book was about one of his favorite topics: sailing. “But when I latch onto a book like They Live by the Wind, by Wendell P. Bradley, I am glued tight to the chair. It is because Bradley wrote about something that has always fascinated (and uplifted) me—sailing." White injected his love of sailing into his book Stuart Little, which contains a sailboat race, and his son Joel became a world-renowned boat designer. Once, Joel made a boat named in honor of his daughter Martha, and White carved four dolphins on each side of the bow and sailed it afterward.
8. HE FOUGHT TO KEEP HOLLYWOOD’S CHARLOTTE’S WEB CARTOON TRUE TO THE BOOK.
In 1973, the animation studio Hanna-Barbera released an animated musical film version of Charlotte’s Web. The studio wanted to change the book’s ending by not having Charlotte die, but White pushed back against a happier ending. Although the studio obliged, White and his wife reportedly hated the animated Charlotte’s Web, regretting that it was made and calling it a travesty.
9. HE STRUGGLED WITH PROCRASTINATION.
White was open about his struggles with writing and procrastination. In an interview, he revealed that he would walk around his house, straightening picture frames and rugs, before sitting down to write. "Delay is natural to a writer," White admitted. But he cautioned that writers have to somehow conquer procrastination: "A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper."
10. HE FOUGHT ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE WITH GRACE AND HUMOR.
Before White died in October 1985, he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. His son read his father’s books and essays aloud, and White usually enjoyed hearing his writing. Because he didn’t remember that he was the author of the words, he would pooh-pooh some passages, saying that the writing wasn’t good enough. But when he liked other passages, he would ask his son, Joel, who wrote the words. "You did, Dad," Joel said. White replied, "Well, not bad."
A tribute to E.B. White's three most famous children's books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOQLrJDiH8k
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SSG John Ross SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins Cpl Gabriel F. Cynthia Croft
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SGT (Join to see)
LTC Stephen F. He was a remarkable man at the height of the magazine as an art form. It is amazing the authors he associated with. Thank you for the additional information!
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Lt Col Charlie Brown
Too bad a lot of modern writers don't use his Elements of Style. The writing would certainly improve
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SSgt Boyd Herrst
I do agree that his writing was quite eloquent and to go from writing children’s books to writing adult books was a test of his writing skill;
To use the different adult sounding words after writing children's Books and language they can equate with...
In elementary school I looked up adult sounding words and used them. I did put a footnote if I thought my class Mates may not understand the words. I quit explain’g words because it was tedious to do every sentence.. (mark with footnotes)... I had a substitute teacher that praised me for using bigger words but she was always attaching a comment page
And referring to the adult words and I should tone down my words. It looked like she was trying to confuse me ... We only had her for a few weeks.. it seemed like a month..
I will say she didn’t down-grade so That was + in her favor.. it was the little notes.. I went for a dictionary
and she had them staacked behind her desk.. fine.. i’ll Bring in one of dad’s he won at Detroit News Spelling bee(he had 4).. any mistakes I make here is it’s word-fix mistake not mine... So I used Dad’s book to look up words I needed .. what I really needed was a thesaurus and the 5th and 6th graders had them on their side of the library... I was There one day perusing a thesaurus and writing different words for words I had on my list.. Librarian didn’t care.. she didn’t enforse the divided library rule.. said it was discriminatory.. ..I grew up picking up adult words off the News programs and writing them and some I figured their mean’g pretty quick.. and s’times they would explain a difficult word..
teacher said my words may be too
Extemporaneous for my class mates.. it’s time they learn, Mrs G.. !
Here comes the note again.. .
So I got to take another note Home.. she was pass’g Her job off on my parents! She said in the note thàt I needed to think of my
Fellow students sensitivity.. hmm.. reads like some kind of political corectness to me.. .. she instructed my parents to have me write that I would use appropriate words that my fellow students could understand .. Dad told me not to be concerned and agreed with me ..
To use the different adult sounding words after writing children's Books and language they can equate with...
In elementary school I looked up adult sounding words and used them. I did put a footnote if I thought my class Mates may not understand the words. I quit explain’g words because it was tedious to do every sentence.. (mark with footnotes)... I had a substitute teacher that praised me for using bigger words but she was always attaching a comment page
And referring to the adult words and I should tone down my words. It looked like she was trying to confuse me ... We only had her for a few weeks.. it seemed like a month..
I will say she didn’t down-grade so That was + in her favor.. it was the little notes.. I went for a dictionary
and she had them staacked behind her desk.. fine.. i’ll Bring in one of dad’s he won at Detroit News Spelling bee(he had 4).. any mistakes I make here is it’s word-fix mistake not mine... So I used Dad’s book to look up words I needed .. what I really needed was a thesaurus and the 5th and 6th graders had them on their side of the library... I was There one day perusing a thesaurus and writing different words for words I had on my list.. Librarian didn’t care.. she didn’t enforse the divided library rule.. said it was discriminatory.. ..I grew up picking up adult words off the News programs and writing them and some I figured their mean’g pretty quick.. and s’times they would explain a difficult word..
teacher said my words may be too
Extemporaneous for my class mates.. it’s time they learn, Mrs G.. !
Here comes the note again.. .
So I got to take another note Home.. she was pass’g Her job off on my parents! She said in the note thàt I needed to think of my
Fellow students sensitivity.. hmm.. reads like some kind of political corectness to me.. .. she instructed my parents to have me write that I would use appropriate words that my fellow students could understand .. Dad told me not to be concerned and agreed with me ..
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SGT (Join to see) Every year I read Charlotte's Web to my fourth graders. The kids in the lower grades heard about it and could wait until they came to my class.
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