Letters of E. B. White - by E B White (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Originally edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth, and revised and updated by Martha White. With a foreword by John Updike.

These letters are, of course, beautifully written but above all personal, precise, and honest. They evoke E.B. White's life in New York and in Maine at every stage of his life. They are full of memorable characters: White's family, the New Yorker staff and contributors, literary types and show business people, farmers from Maine and sophisticates from New York-Katherine S. White, Harold Ross, James Thurber, Alexander Woolcott, Groucho Marx, John Updike, and many, many more.

Each decade has its own look and taste and feel. Places, too-from Belgrade (Maine) to Turtle Bay (NYC) to the S.S. Buford, Alaska-bound in 1923-are brought to life in White's descriptions. There is no other book of letters to compare with this; it is a book to treasure and savor at one's leisure.

As White wrote in this book, "A man who publishes his letters becomes nudist--nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin....a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time."

From the Back Cover

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.

Review Quotes

"They don't make writers like E.B. White anymore....His letters are the equivalent of a weekend in the country." - Wilfrid Sheed, New York Times

"E.B. White sticks out like a green thumb in a mass of clenched fists and nimble fingers picking pockets....The reader is in the presence of a keenly interested observer, a friend of men, women, children, dogs, geese, turkeys, sailing craft, automobiles, trains--and of good writing." - Jean Stafford, Saturday Review

"The closest thing to an autobiography we shall probably have from White." - Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"This is his biggest book....and, as he says, his most naked....This collection, addressed to many people, will speak to many more." - John Updike, The New Yorker

"My heart is at his feet. Time spent in his company--for that is what reading his letters is--will improve anyone's view of the universe." - Elizabeth Cleland, Washington Star

"The collection ranges back to White's suburban boyhood in Westchester, then follows him through careers as student, editorialist, humorist, farmer, and, finally retiree to the shores of Maine." - Stefan anfer, Time magazine

"The Letters of E. B. White, Revised Edition shows the beloved writers growing old with all the grace and wit one might suspect." - Newsday

Editor's Choice - New York Times Book Review

Still, the perfect marriage of animal husbandry and letters is on display in E. B. White's writing, a great harvest of which has just appeared in the revised edition of his letters... For White, farming and writing were powerfully linked, each sustaining the other. Nowhere is this more engagingly evident than in his letters - Boston Globe

The number of letter writers is rapidly decreasing in this age of electronic communications, which makes preserving past correspondence between thoughtful writers a worthwhile endeavor. When the letter writer is the author of the classic children's book Charlotte's Web, co-author of The Elements of Style (aka Strunk and White), a pioneering New Yorker columnist and one of America's best essayists, the task becomes an act of history. - Ellsworth American

"Authors' letters are always interesting if you want to learn more about writers, obviously, and White's offer more insight than most." - Tampa Tribune

First published 30 years ago, this collection solidifies the reputation of E. B. White as one of America's great essayists and writers of children's fiction. (Included in "Best in Print 2006") - Louisville Courier Journal

[E. B. White] had a knack for describing in the plainest detail what it meant to be alive... We all know White for the light his approach threw upon the animal kingdom. As these letters prove, he extended that grace to humans, too. - Philadelphia Inquirer

"The joy of reading these letters is thus not in the events that they recount nor in what we find out about White's personality but rather in the craftsmanship of their prose and the wisdom of their content... how lucky we all are to have this revised and expanded edition that enables us to be fellow members of the audience." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"E.B. White writes terrific letters. . . . They prove once and again that reading someone else's mail can be a lot more fun than reading one's own." - William McPherson, Washington Post

"This collection, addressed to many people, will speak to many more." - John Updike, The New Yorker

This collection is a wonderful way to become acquainted with this rare talent... the collected works of E. B. White, including these letters, stand as his monument... one of America's greatest writers. - Des Moines Register

"White is remembered as one of the old New Yorker's formative stylists, and any comprehensive anthology of American humor or prose is likely to include one of his graceful essays about small matters that made his uneasy, Down East." - New York Times Book Review

"[E. B. White's] essays, his letters, his quips and his squibs are simply beautiful... The essays show him to have an eloquent and lifelong devotion for freedoms, the letters an eloquent and lifelong devotion to friends." - Louisville Courier Journal

"Readers are rewarded with portraits of White at all stages of his life... but the most amazing thing to emerge from the letters, if read sequentially, is the love story between White and his wife, Katharine." - Minneapolis Star Tribune