The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic

by Michael Sims

Overview

While composing what would become his most enduring and popular book, E. B. White obeyed that oft-repeated maxim: "Write what you know." Helpless pigs, silly geese, clever spiders, greedy rats-White knew all of these characters in the barns and stables where he spent his favorite hours as a child and adult. Painfully shy, "this boy," White once wrote of himself, "felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people." It's all the more impressive, therefore, how many people have felt a kinship with E. B. White.

Michael Sims chronicles White's animal-rich childhood, his writing about urban nature for the New Yorker, his scientific research into how spiders spin webs and lay eggs, his friendship with his legendary editor, Ursula Nordstrom, the composition and publication of his masterpiece, and his ongoing quest to recapture an enchanted childhood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802778178
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/07/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Michael Sims is the author of the acclaimed Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination, Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form, and editor of the recent Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories and The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime He lives in western Pennsylvania.
Michael Sims's six acclaimed non-fiction books include The Adventures of Henry Thoreau, The Story of Charlotte's Web, and Adam's Navel, and he edits the Connoisseur's Collection anthology series, which includes Dracula's Guest, The Dead Witness, The Phantom Coach, and the forthcoming Frankenstein Dreams. His writing has appeared in New Statesman, New York Times, Washington Post, and many other periodicals. He appears often on NPR, BBC, and other networks. He lives in Pennsylvania.

michaelsimsbooks.com

Table of Contents

Introduction: Translating Yourself 1

Part I Elwyn

Chapter 1 Enchanted 9

Chapter 2 Fear 19

Chapter 3 Trustworthy 33

Chapter 4 A Writing Fool 42

Chapter 5 Liebesträum 55

Part II Andy

Chapter 6 Olympus 69

Chapter 7 Interview with a Sparrow 86

Chapter 8 Crazy 96

Chapter 9 As Spiders Do 106

Part III Charlotte

Chapter 10 Dream Farm 127

Chapter 11 The Mouse of Thought 143

Chapter 12 Foreknowledge 157

Chapter 13 Zuckerman's Barn 169

Chapter 14 Spinningwork 175

Chapter 15 Paean 189

Chapter 16 Some Book 208

Chapter 17 Completion 226

Coda: After Charlotte 236

Acknowledgments 245

Abbreviations for Frequent Sources 249

Notes 251

Selected Bibliography and Further Reading 289

Index 297

Editorial Reviews

In this spry biography of Elwyn Brooks White (1899-1985), Sims (Apollo's Fire) immerses himself in White's oeuvre and channels his lucid prose style. Juxtaposing details from White's essays and letters with his own research and sprinkling the text with White's gimlet-eyed quotations, Sims depicts the author (who lived in suburban Mount Vernon and summered in Maine) as a melancholy wunderkind. The deeply sensitive, meticulous White—"plagued by wild anxieties and indefinable nostalgia" all his life—grew up admiring naturalist writers like Ernest Thompson Seton, and contributing animal stories to St. Nicholas children's magazine. Sims breezes past White's college years, focusing instead on his introversion and romantic-washout status, while also devoting attention to his blossoming as a staff writer and cartoon-captioning whiz for Harold Ross' New Yorker. According to Sims, White drew inspiration from Don Marquis' anthropomorphic cockroach and cat, as well as from wife-to-be Katharine Angell, and fellow writer James Thurber. Not until his 50s, after years in the city and on his small Maine farm, did White utilize these formative influences for Charlotte's Web. Admirers of White's essays and luminous children's literature will be delighted by this amiable chronicle. 8p b&w insert. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Immensely charming” —Boston Globe

“A fine stylist, Mr. Sims portrays these scenes with a beauty and an economy of language that would make the co-author of The Elements of Style proud.” —Wall Street Journal

“Thorough...clear, direct and concise...a lovely and empathetic testament to E.B. White's vision.” —The Washington Post

“The Story of Charlotte's Web is a paean to a great work and a window into the uniquely gifted man who created it.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Sims offers an affectionate homage to E.B. White” —Entertainment Weekly

“An engaging, distilled, highly focused biography of White” —Salon

“Built on revealing glimpses” —USA Today

“A really lovely book” —Science Friday

“Unpacks the appeal of Charlotte's Web” —Smithsonian

“Goes back to Zuckerman's farm” —Vanity Fair

“A pocket biography” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Beautifully written and researched, the book is well worth anyone's time” —Monica Edinger, Huffington Post

“An affectionate biography…Packed with the same kind of sensory detail its subject reveled in, this account is an honorable addition to the literature of letters.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Sims (Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form), as a droll observer of the natural world and editor of the annotated edition of one of E.B. White's formative influences, Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel, is uniquely qualified to write what is a biography of Charlotte's Web as much as it's a biography of White. White's childhood fascination with the world's smaller denizens and his literary career, including his storied history at The New Yorker, are traced by Sims to their climax in the germination of the plot for Charlotte's Web. Like Beatrix Potter, whose children's stories about anthropomorphized animals were written a half-century before, White consciously avoided moralizing and instead attempted naturalistic faithfulness. Although his children's books were extremely successful and tourists flocked unbidden to his Maine farm each year for his birthday, he longed for solitude throughout his life and felt the greatest connection with animals; Sims successfully argues that Charlotte's Web unintentionally became a "summary of what it felt like to be E.B. White." VERDICT Scholars of children's literature as well as fans—child and grown-up alike—of either White generally or Charlotte's Web in particular will enjoy this biblio-biography.—Megan Hodge, Randolph-Macon Coll. Lib., Ashland, VA

Library Journal

Writer Michael Sims reveals the development of writer E.B. White as he created one of the most cherished and popular of children’s books. The story is made even more personal and pleasurable with the sure-handed work of narrator Nick Sullivan. This literary biography traces the young White’s love for nature as his impetus to realistically portray animals in “human situations.” Sullivan authoritatively delivers the story of the shy boy who felt more for animals than people, but he also clearly voices White’s unswervingly realistic view of nature. Readers of Charlotte and Wilbur’s adventure will learn just how much care and thought was put into rendering this classic work. R.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2011 - AudioFile

An affectionate biography examines the birth of an American classic.

As the subtitle indicates, Sims (Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination, 2007, etc.) concentrates on White's lifelong love of the natural world. He loved the family stable, writes the author, and roamed the undeveloped places in and around Mount Vernon, N.Y., as well as reveling in the rustic beauty of the Belgrade Lakes in Maine, where his family summered. White's reading tastes revolved around the "true life" animal stories of Ernest Thompson Seton and his ilk, and he was also charmed by the antics of Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel. White began writing early, first keeping a diary and then joining the child contributors to St. Nicholas, among whom also numbered his future wife, Katharine Sergeant. Sims also traces White'sNew Yorkercareer, touching lightly on high points and drawing on his writings, both public and private, in which he often adopted the voices of animals. The author avoids the often-irritating tendency of literary biographers to foreshadow portentously from these early experiences, allowing readers to draw their own connections. His examination of the genesis and development ofCharlotte's Web—White worked desperately to nurse an ill pig back to health, knowing that if he was successful, he would end up killing it anyway—will thrill lovers of the novel. Sims quotes generously from White's working drafts, which were constantly in revision from the beginning. Descriptions of these pages offer both a fascinating insight into the writing process and crushing refutation of any claim that writing for children is easy.

Packed with the same kind of sensory detail its subject reveled in, this account is an honorable addition to the literature of letters.

Kirkus Reviews