Popular quotes: The meaning an history behind "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it."
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." E.B. White
Today, E.B. White is perhaps most famous and beloved for his children's books,
Stuart Little
(1945), Charlotte's
Web (1952), and Trumpet
of the Swan (1970). Many of us also know White from the classic The
Elements of Style, a slim handbook of stylistic and grammatical guidance,
which he edited and updated in 1959 from the original published in 1918 by William
Strunk, Jr. But White was most prolific and respected in his career as an essayist,
columnist, and satirist for The New Yorker and Harper's, writing about urban life, nature, failures of technological progress, war, and internationalism.
Elwyn Brooks
White was born in Mount Vernon, NY, in 1899, the youngest of six children - a
family White described as "a kingdom unto ourselves." He graduated from Cornell
University in 1921, and worked a series of writing jobs before joining the newly
established New Yorker, and remained on its staff for the rest of his career.
He married the magazine's literary editor, Katherine Sergeant Angell in 1929.
In 1939 they moved to a farm in North Brooklin, Maine, where White lived until
his death of Alzheimer disease 1985. He was awarded the gold medal for essays
and criticism of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Pulitzer Prize
special citation in 1978. He held honorary degrees from seven American colleges
and universities and was a member of the American Academy.
Of writing for children,
White says: "Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You
have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive,
curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on
earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as
long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly."
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
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Elwyn Brooks
White was born in Mount Vernon, NY, in 1899, the youngest of six children - a
family White described as "a kingdom unto ourselves." He graduated from Cornell
University in 1921, and worked a series of writing jobs before joining the newly
established New Yorker, and remained on its staff for the rest of his career.
He married the magazine's literary editor, Katherine Sergeant Angell in 1929.
In 1939 they moved to a farm in North Brooklin, Maine, where White lived until
his death of Alzheimer disease 1985. He was awarded the gold medal for essays
and criticism of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Pulitzer Prize
special citation in 1978. He held honorary degrees from seven American colleges
and universities and was a member of the American Academy. 
