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Title details for The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims - Available

The Story of Charlotte's Web

E. B. White and the Birth of a Children's Classic

by Michael Sims
ebook
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While composing what would become his most enduring and popular book, Charlotte's Web, E. B. White was obeying 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 favourite hours as child and adult. Painfully shy, White once wrote of himself 'this boy felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people'. Nonetheless, that tens of millions have been so moved by Charlotte's Web, and by White's other classics, testifies to his deep understanding of the human condition.
Bringing readers into intimate contact with E. B. White's world, Michael Sims chronicles his animal-rich youth and dreams of being a writer; the vibrant early years of the New Yorker,where urban nature was White's ever-present theme; the discovery of the farm in Maine where he and his wife would live; his fascinating scientific research into how spiders spin webs, lay eggs, and live in the world; his friendship with his legendary editor, Ursula Nordstrom; and the luminous creative process that led to publication of his masterpiece.
By refining the raw ore of his childhood in Mount Vernon, New York, in the first decade of the twentieth century, White translated his own passions and contradictions, delights and fears, into a book that would be read the world over. The Story of Charlotte's Web illuminates the life of a literary icon, and will add richness and appreciation for anyone who has loved, or has yet to read, a cherished classic.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 4, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781408823064

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781408823064
      • File size: 2063 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 1, 2011
      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 Whiteâ"plagued by wild anxieties and indefinable nostalgia" all his lifeâgrew 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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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