Essays of E. B. White (Perennial Classics)

This book was received from ThriftBooks through Amazon in the condition noted which was Very Good. This is an older book that was published in 1977. There is no "old book" smell. There are no stains of food or water damage. There is no writing or highlighting. There is no former owner bookplate. There is only a small tear in the bottom right corner of the paper book jacket which was ok with me. The photo did not indicate the book would even have a paper jacket so I considered it a bonus. The pages are of the thicker cream color paper that is cut so they aren't all perfectly even on the long edge. I like that effect on a book. I borrowed a copy of this book from a local library and enjoyed the first essay so much I ordered the book. I wanted to be able to read the essays over time instead of on a library due date timeline. I have enjoyed all of the essays I have read to this point.

writes Elwyn Brooks White, probably familiar to most people as the author of Charlotte's Web. This collection contains 31 essays that "cover a long expanse of time, a wide variety of subjects" divided into seven categories: The Farm; The Planet; The City; Florida; Memories; Diversions and Obsessions; and Books, Men, and Writing. White impresses me most with his ability to entertain and inform readers on wide-ranging subjects. He seems as comfortable (and skilled) at writing about serious topics like: segregation (On a Florida Key-1941), "And I felt there were too many people in the world who think liberty and justice for all means liberty and justice for themselves and their friends;" the separation of church and state (Bedfellows-1956), "...I don't think a president should advertise prayer;" environmentalism (Sootfall and Fallout-1956), "I believe that no chemical waste is the correct amount to discharge into the rivers of the world...;"and disarmament (Unity-1960) "Total disarmament would not leave anyone free of the threat of war, it would simply leave everyone temporarily without the help of arms in the event of war;" as he is sharing his insight on less serious subjects, such as: the difficulty with giving up sentimental stuff (Goodbye to Forty-eighth Street-1957), "Trophies are like leeches. The ones made of paper, such as a diploma from school or a college, can be burned if you have the guts to light the match, but the ones made of bronze not only are indestructible but are almost impossible to throw away...;" his well-missed dachshund (Bedfellows), "Whenever the bed was occupied during the daylight hours...Fred would appear at the doorway and enter without knocking. On his big gray face would be a look of quiet amusement (at having caught somebody in bed during the daytime) coupled with his look of fake respectability;" the fate of a sick pig (Death of a Pig-1947), "Never send to know for whom the grave is dug, I said to myself, it's dug for thee;" an unconventional family of geese (The Geese-1971), "...geese are friends with no one, the badmouth everybody and everything;" and a nostalgic, return trip to a favorite boyhood destination with his son (Once More to the Lake-1941), "Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end." He also has great stuff to say about those whose works he admires, for example: (Will Strunk-1957), "A book I have decided not to get rid of is a small one...The Elements of Style, by the late William Strunk, Jr....Am delighted to study it again and rediscover its rich deposits of gold;" an ornithologist (Mr. Forbush's Friends), "If Edward Howe Forbush's prose is occasionally overblown, this results from a genuine ecstacy in the man, rather than a lack of discipline;" and Thoreau (A Slight Sound at Evening-1954), "Hairshirt or no, he is a better companion than most, and I would not swap him for a soberer or more reasonable friend even if I could." Other eclectic topics include: everything you ever wanted to know about the Model T (Farewell, My Lovely!-circa 1936), an eventful trip by ship to Alaska after being relieved of his job as a Seattle Times reporter (The Years of Wonder-1961), and the evolution of the railroad system in Maine (The Railroad-1960). Besides the fact that it contains some of the best essays of all time, the book's foreword provides insight into the authors' views on the genre and its writers, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish believe that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest," and the post essay section, entitled About E.B. White, includes an excellent chronology of major events in the man's life and writing career. Also good: The Painted Veil by Somerset Maughan, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Most folks will know E.B. White as the author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, or as the eminently practical voice of reason in The Elements of Style. However, White was also an accomplished essayist, turning out pieces for The New Yorker and Harpers on a regular basis for many years. What I like about White's essays is that they can be counted on to be insightful, amusing and well-written. White approaches an essay like a pleasant conversation. He's been thinking about New York and its inhabitants, he will tell you, and this what he's come up with. On another occasion it may be the personality quirks of his old dachshund Fred, or the controversy over white versus brown eggs. Anything and everything is food for thought, although you can be sure that White will broaden the scope of his topics to include the world at large. New York, he concludes, is a concentrated version of many worlds, "...bringing to a single arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader, and the merchant." Fred, the dachshund, was "...the Cecil B. deMille of dogs. He was a zealot, and I have just been reminded of him by a quote from one of the Democrats..." And the white versus brown egg debate, White concludes, is simply a matter of what you're used to. Personally he prefers brown, and can recommend the egg of the Silver Cross, whose egg is "...so richly brown, so wondrously beautiful as to defy description." Best of all, White's insightful commentary does not require intense concentration or endless analysis to get the gist of what he is trying to say. You can sit back and relax when you pick up a book of his essays, knowing you won't have to grapple with unfamiliar or awkward language. This is not to imply that you won't find yourself thinking about what he has to say. It's just that his approach is so matter-of- fact, easy going and accessible that you feel you've been invited to tea or are taking a leisurely stroll as the essay unfolds. I read White's essays the way some people read mysteries or romance novels. They are entertaining without being too demanding, and are a great way to set day-to-day concerns aside. Treat yourself to a good read.

A good read

The odd intrusion of the dog in the cover photo here tells all you need to know about White's sensibility. He had such a wonderful eye for the oddness in the ordinary.

"One never knows," wrote White in "A Report in Spring," "what images one is going to hold in one's memory, returning to the city after a brief orgy in the country. I find this morning that what I most vividly and longingly recall is the sight of my grandson and his little sunburnt sister returning to their kitchen door from an excursion, with trophies of the meadow clutched in their hands---she with a couple of violets and smiling, he serious and holding dandelions, strangling them in a responsible grip. Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists---just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts." Shakespeare can stop time with a few words. He and the King James' Bible have been mined, word and whisker, for titles, epigraphs, sayings, and writing assignments since the ink dried. E. B. White has this power, too, & it shines in "The Essays of E. B. White." There are 31 essays in this 350 page book, sorted into seven cubbyholes: the Farm (10 pieces), the Planet (3), the city (2), Florida (3), Memories (4), Diversions & Obsessions (2), and Books, Men, and Writing (6). The earliest appeared in 1934; the latest in this collection, 1977. White selected them, he tells us, because they amused him on re-reading and because "a few had the odor of durability clinging to them." The reader may find all of these essays have an odor of durability & relevance clinging to them, bringing us up short, not unlike the powerful aromatic presence of the long-gone dachschund Fred adhering to the great strap of his collar. Somewhere, at sometime, White may have written a clumsy, ugly, wince-worthy sentence, and he may have written pieces as perishable as a moth in a flame. If so, I have not found them in "The Essays of E. B. White." White's power comes surely from his often-praised style, a distillation of Professor Strunk & his own merry willingness to sail with the tides of a thought. Take the paragraph on those grandchildren. Omit "longingly recall," use "trip" rather than "excursion," substitute "holding them tightly" for "strangling them in a responsible grip" and leave out "who are less sure of it." One has perfectly good English, but not a paragraph that so clutches the beauty & brevity of life, in its heart or ours. Readers could rejoice long in thinking about the style of the essays, fer sure. Yet what makes White White is more than the simplicity, clarity, and felicity of his style. The man shown in these essays writes superbly AND he cares passionately about the big ideas of justice, freedom, democracy, decency and the even bigger ideas of compassion, pity, and joy. White almost quivers at the beauty as well as at the tears of things. He talks about them in the particular more than in the high abstract. With him, we see them too in a Model T, in his wife's determination to free Coral Bells from Achillea, in a widowed old gander whose tail-feathers are sore from the attack of his foster-son, the handsome young gander, in his essays on Thoreau, and in his response to suppression of ideas. I bought my recent copy of "The Essays of E. B. White" largely because of a few sentences that have so haunted me for years that I wanted to read again in these somewhat turbulent times. In "Death of a Pig," he writes, "[This was] the sort of dramatic treatment that instantly appealed to my old dachshund, Fred, who joined the vigil, held the bag, and, when all was over, presided at the interment. When we slid the body into the grave, we were both shaken to the core. The loss we felt was not the loss of ham but the loss of pig. He had evidently become precious to me, not that he represented a distant nourishment in a hungry time, but that he had suffered in a suffering world." This essay, and the others in the book, are even better than I remembered. Unreservedly & enthusiastically recommended.

Book itself in top condition with no marks except light pencil where price (twice what we paid) had been marked at an earlier time. Book cover a little worse for the wear, which probably accounts for the condition rating. It had been listed as good so very pleasant surprise find it almost fine; love getting this handsome hardcover real book printed on fine thick paper, and it appears to be a first edition, first printing. E.B.White is a favorite writer at our house, so joy all around.

Ever since I read (and re-read) Charlotte's Web, I have become very much interested in the man who created the philosophical spider and a worried piglet. Besides being the author of popular children's tales, White is famous for being the co-author of The Elements of Style, the most successful handbook book on writing. In the collection, the writer writes about his first encounter with the late co-author, William Strunk, Jr. This year is the centenary anniversary of their first meeting when White attended Prof. Strunk's class in Cornell back in 1919. Mr White had no idea that decades later, he would be the one to revise and expand his teacher's little book. White's essays bears the hallmark of tightness. Also, they also show what he and his master believe in: cut needless words. And each of them love to shout the slogan for three times. For other rules, one can check out The Elements of Style. For the design of this Harper edition, I absolutely love the cover and the tactile quality of it. (It also draws attention to his dachshund, Fred). Though it is permissible to have a small number of typographical errors in a book over 200 pages, future editors need to try and try again to eliminate such errors like "will", a modal verb, and "Will", the short form for "William", etc.