The World She Edited - by Amy Reading (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

"Meticulously researched." --The New York Times

"A first-rate biography." --Washington Post

A lively and intimate biography of trailblazing and era-defining New Yorker editor Katharine S. White, who helped build the magazine's prestigious legacy and transform the 20^th century literary landscape for women.

In the summer of 1925, Katharine Sergeant Angell White walked into The New Yorker's midtown office and left with a job as an editor. The magazine was only a few months old. Over the next thirty-six years, White would transform the publication into a literary powerhouse.

This exquisite biography brings to life the remarkable relationships White fostered with her writers and how these relationships nurtured an astonishing array of literary talent. She edited a young John Updike, to whom she sent seventeen rejections before a single acceptance, as well as Vladimir Nabokov, with whom she fought incessantly, urging that he drop needlessly obscure, confusing words.

White's biggest contribution, however, was her cultivation of women writers whose careers were made at The New Yorker--Janet Flanner, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Stafford, Nadine Gordimer, Elizabeth Taylor, Emily Hahn, Kay Boyle, and more. She cleared their mental and financial obstacles, introduced them to each other, and helped them create now classic stories and essays. She propelled these women to great literary heights and, in the process, reinvented the role of the editor, transforming the relationship to be not just a way to improve a writer's work but also their life.

Based on years of scrupulous research, acclaimed author Amy Reading creates a rare and deeply intimate portrait of a prolific editor--through both her incredible tenure at The New Yorker, and her famous marriage to E.B. White--and reveals how she transformed our understanding of literary culture and community.

"The next best thing to cocktails at the Algonquin." -- Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Review Quotes

"Superlative." - Air Mail

"I believe there is nothing of importance that can be known about White that Reading doesn't know. . . . She chooses her examples well and describes them deftly and insightfully. . . . This is a first-rate biography." - Washington Post

"Good biographies make readers care passionately about a subject's life. The best introduce us to an entire world, in this case, midcentury literary New York and New England, where White worked editorial magic." - Boston Globe

"Meticulously researched." - New York Times

"Captivating...An entertaining and expansive study of a pioneering literary editor and the era that shaped her legendary tenure....Reading finally shines a well-deserved spotlight on White's remarkable career." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The World She Edited, Amy Reading's stunning new biography of the New Yorker's least lauded but arguably most consequential editor, Katharine S. White, is both revealing and revelatory....With delicacy and insight, Reading opens a closely guarded personal life to empathic scrutiny, while proving definitively that White's was nothing short of a brilliant career." - Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast

"Some people like to curl up with a cozy mystery, while for others, the ultimate cozy involves midcentury literary Manhattan. Amy Reading--whose bona fides include service on the executive board of cooperative indie bookstore Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, N.Y.--profiles New Yorker editor Katharine S. White, who came on board at the magazine in 1925 and spent 36 years editing the likes of Elizabeth Bishop, Janet Flanner, and Mary McCarthy. Put the kettle on--or better yet, pour a classic gin martini--in preparation for this one, which underscores the many women authors White championed." - The Millions

"Penetrating...Reading convincingly portrays White as a feminist pioneer who built a career in which she embodied the urbane, ambitious women who read the New Yorker and populated its fiction. The prose is lucid and elegant, evoking the style White infused into the magazine...The result is a fine portrait of one of the New Yorker's leading lights that nails the magazine's hothouse sensibility." - Publishers Weekly

"With profound understanding of and appreciation for the full extent of White's achievements, Reading's in-depth, ardently and expertly written biography is a literary landmark." - Booklist (starred review)

"Reading harnesses years of deep research, granular attention, and a refreshingly critical eye to examine the life of Katharine S. White, renowned editor of The New Yorker. In detailing White's immense talent, fastidiousness, rigor, and, perhaps most groundbreakingly and movingly of all, her deep relational acuity, Reading reveals White's tremendous savvy--and, equally, her sacrifice--in choosing to exercise her power from the wings rather than center stage. Reading reminds us to pull back the curtain and look carefully at who, and what, is behind the stories that shape us all. A thorough, nuanced, and deeply human excavation of an extraordinary life." - Sara B. Franklin, author of The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America

"Amy Reading has recreated a lost, gilded literary world in her smart and evocative biography of Katharine White, the longtime editor at The New Yorker who helped shape postwar American literature. As we read over White's shoulder, we gain deeper insight into the lives and work of the women writers White cultivated--Elizabeth Bishop, Mary McCarthy, May Sarton, Djuna Barnes, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Stafford, Adrienne Rich, and many others--and that of her husband, E. B. White. One finishes this book with enormous gratitude for Katharine White's quiet but fierce commitment to reading, writing, and women, and for Amy Reading's determination to recognize White's achievement. Gratitude, too, for all the drama, humor, and literary gossip that make The World She Edited the next best thing to cocktails at the Algonquin." - Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

"Amy Reading has recreated a lost, gilded literary world in her smart and evocative biography of Katharine White, the longtime editor at The New Yorker who helped shape postwar American literature. One finishes this book with enormous gratitude for Katharine White's quiet but fierce commitment to reading, writing, and women, and for Amy Reading's determination to recognize White's achievement. Gratitude, too, for all the drama, humor, and literary gossip that make The World She Edited the next best thing to cocktails at the Algonquin." - Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

"An important, overdue corrective to the persistently male-dominated histories of American literature as it developed over the twentieth century and, particularly, of the magazine that most fostered its growth: The New Yorker. You will be astonished to learn of the extensive networks of women supporting each other and playing important roles in the literary world from the 1920s-1950s. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, The World She Edited is an enlightening, enthralling read, revealing White's powerful influence and development of generations of writers, many of them women who are very little known today--but deserve to be, as does White herself." - Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

"This beautifully written book elegantly demonstrates the vital role hidden figures play in shaping cultural taste. New Yorker editor Katharine White encouraged a world of writers - women writers especially - to produce their finest work. This sensitive, compelling book does White justice, revealing the remarkable labor of pulling something better from those who believe they've already done their best. American literature as we know it owes Katharine White." - Carla Kaplan, author of Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters and Miss Anne in Harlem

"Harold Ross, James Thurber, and E. B. White usually get all the credit for the creation and shaping of The New Yorker magazine. Amy Reading's book, carefully researched and lucidly written, makes a powerful case that Katharine White was every bit as important. They gave the magazine a tone and a style. She gave it a brain." - Chip McGrath, former deputy editor of The New Yorker