E.B. White

Eloquent author E.B. White was born as Elwyn Brooks White on July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York. Although White was a prolific writer from a young age, he was shy about sharing his work with others, and worried about delivering a speech to his classmates, instead opting to have someone else read his work aloud. In 1921, White earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University, where his peers nicknamed him Andy, after the school’s co-founder, Andrew Dickson White. At Cornell, White also worked as the editor of The Daily Sun.

After graduating from University, White worked for a variety of papers, including The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He also worked in advertising before eventually returning to New York City to publish his first article in The New Yorker magazine in 1925. The New Yorker hired White on as staff two years later, where he would remain an integral contributor to the magazine for several decades. In addition, White penned a column for Harper's Magazine from 1938 to 1943; he also served as the editor the English major’s bible, The Elements of Style, in 1959.

In 1929, White married fellow editor and author, Katharine Sergeant Angell. The couple had one son together, naval architect and boat builder, Joel White.

In his early 30s, White began writing children’s fiction for his niece, Janice Hart White. He released his first children's book, Stuart Little, in 1945. Eight years later, White followed-up with another children’s book featuring talking animals, Charlotte's Web. Both books received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for children's literature in 1970. By the end of the decade, White’s writing was recognized with a prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

In 1999 a live-action film, very loosely based on the novel of the same name featured Michael J Fox as the voice of the titular character. Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie star as Eleanor and Fredrick Little, with Jonathan Lipnicki as Stuart's big brother George and Nathan Lane as the voice of the family cat Snowbell.

In 2006 Charlottes' Web hit the big screen starring Dakota Fanning and voice overs as diverse as those by Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, and Robert Redford.

On October 1, 1985, at the age of eighty-six, White lost a long battle with Alzheimer's at his farm home in North Brooklin, Maine. His ashes are buried beside his wife at the Brooklin Cemetery.

Many of the themes in White’s writing continue to ring true in modern-day events. In his 1948 Holiday magazine essay, “Here Is New York,” White reflected on New York City’s vulnerability to attack in a passage that was often quoted after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks: "The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York in the sound of the jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition."

YUDDY