Author

E. B. White

1899-1985 · American essayist and New Yorker writer, author of Charlotte's Web

About E. B. White

Elwyn Brooks White (1899–1985), born in Mount Vernon, New York, was an American essayist, a staff writer for The New Yorker from its early years, and later the reviser of William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style. Stuart Little, his first book for children, began as a character he said came to him in a dream on a train, and he told stories about the mouse-sized boy to young relatives for years before finishing the book at his farm in North Brooklin, Maine. Charlotte's Web (1952) and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970) followed, and in 1970 he received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal.

Notable works

On this site

Stuart Little

E. B. White

1945 · Postwar Contemporary · Novel

Stuart Little is the second son of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Little of New York City, and from his arrival he is only about two inches tall and looks in every way like a mouse. The family, including his older brother George, treat him as one of themselves, and Stuart is courteous, neatly dressed in tiny clothes, and full of enterprise.

Travel JourneyFriendshipIdentity Self
Charlotte's Web

E. B. White

1952 · Postwar Contemporary · Novel

Charlotte's Web opens at breakfast on the Arable farm, when eight-year-old Fern learns that her father is going out to kill the runt of a new litter of pigs. She protests so fiercely against killing a creature for being small that he gives her the piglet to raise.

low medical relevanceFriendshipDeath / MortalityAnimals
The Trumpet of the Swan

E. B. White

1970 · Postwar Contemporary · Novel

On a camping trip in the Canadian woods, eleven-year-old Sam Beaver, a Montana rancher's son who loves wild things and keeps a journal that ends each night with a question, discovers a pair of trumpeter swans nesting on a hidden pond. He keeps their secret, and when a fox creeps up on the sitting pen he drives it off with a stick.

low medical relevanceAnimalsNature / LandscapeFriendship