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Welcome to This Awful/Awesome Life! My name is Frances Joyce. I am the publisher and editor of this magazine. We'll be exploring different topics each month to inform, entertain and inspire you. Meet new authors, sharpen your brain and pick up a few tips on life, love, entertaining and business. Enjoy and please share!

Happy Birthday, E.B. White by Fran Joyce

Elwyn Brooks White (E.B. White) was born July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York. He died on October 1, 1985, in Brooklin, Maine. White wrote children’s books that included iconic animal characters such as Stuart Little, the mouse in Stuart Little and the characters from Charlotte’s Web. He was a contributing editor to The New Yorker magazine, and he received co-author credit for the revisions he made to The Elements of Style, an English language style guide originally written by William Strunk, Jr. Strunk was one of White’s professors at Cornell University.

White was the youngest of six children in his family. His brother Stanley, a professor of landscape architecture, is credited with inventing the vertical garden and inspiring his sibling to read about and explore the natural world.

While attending Cornell University, he worked as an editor of The Cornell Daily Sun. White was also a member of the Student Army Training Corps. He would have served as a soldier during World War I if the war had not ended before his graduation in 1921.

After graduation, he worked for the United Press and the American Legion News Service before becoming a reporter for the Seattle Times. When he was  fired by the Seattle Times, he wrote for a rival newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer before going to Alaska to work on a fireboat.

After his stint in Alaska, White worked in advertising and copywriting before returning to New York. After The New Yorker was founded, White began submitting stories and articles. He was hired as a staff writer. White was shy and reclusive and preferred writing in private. He didn’t like attending staff meetings. He finally agreed to come into the office to work on Thursdays. His first article was published in 1925, but it was two years before he officially joined the staff. Once there, he continued to write for the magazine for almost 60 years. He was also a columnist for Harper’s Magazine from 1938-1943.

White married Katharine Angell in 1929. They had a son Joel and a son Roger from Angell’s previous marriage.

In 1929, White co-authored a short book titled Is Sex Necessary? With James Thurber. It is considered a love letter to New York City. It was republished in 1999 by his stepson, Roger Angell in honor of what would have been White’s 100th birthday.

In the late 1930s, White began writing children’s books. Initially, Stuart Little (1945) received an unenthusiastic reception from the literary community. Charlotte’s Web (1952) followed and was more positively received. Both books went on to receive high acclaim and become favorites of children all around the world. Charlotte’s Web won a Newbery Honor.

 

In 1963, President John Kennedy selected White as one of 31 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After the president’s assassination, President Johnson presided over the ceremony and presented the awards.

In 1970, White received a Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the U.S. professional librarians in recognition of his “substantial and lasting” contributions to children’s literature. That same year he published The Trumpet of the Swan which won the Sequoia Award from Oklahoma and the William Allen White Award from Kansas. These awards are voted on by students  who select their favorite book of the year.

White narrated the 1973 Oscar nominated Canadian animated short, The Family That Dwelt Apart which was based on his short story of the same name.

In 1978, White received a special Pulitzer Prize for his letters, essays, and complete body of works.

White was at times reclusive and shy around people, but he loved animals, farms and farming, the seasons, and weather forecasting. Toward the end of his life, White was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He died at his farmhouse in Maine and is buried beside his wife who preceded him in death.

Assorted Books by E.B. White:

Less Than Nothing, or, The Life and Times of Sterling Finny (1927)

The Lady is Cold: Poems by EBW (1929)

Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way you Do (1929) with James Thurber

Every Day is Saturday (1934)

The Fox of Peapack, and other poems (1938)

Stuart Little (1945)

Charlotte’s Web (1952)

The Second Tree from the Corner (1954)

The Elements of Style (1959) revisions of William Struck Jr’s 1918 book

The Trumpet of the Swan (1970)

Letters of E.B. White (1976)

Essays of E.B. White (1977)

Poems and Sketches by E.B. White (1981)

Photo Credit:

By White Literary LLC, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14518529 

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