Books written by
The complete bibliography of the man who wrote Charlotte’s Web and rewrote the rules of American prose
Elwyn Brooks White — known to nearly everyone as “Andy,” a nickname picked up at Cornell — spent most of his career as an essayist and contributing editor for The New Yorker, quietly perfecting a plain, exact prose style. He is remembered today for two very different achievements: three children’s books that are still read to kids who don’t yet know his name, and a slim grammar guide that has taught several generations of writers, students, and journalists how to write a clean sentence.
Below is his complete bibliography in chronological order, with my honest take on each one, plus a quick-facts box and an FAQ covering the questions people actually ask about him. White gave almost no interviews in his lifetime — he was famously camera-shy — but he did agree to a rare written interview for The Paris Review in 1969, which remains the closest thing to hearing him explain his own writing in his own words. If you’re drawn to writers who treat the sentence itself as the craft, I’ve also written about the best books on writing, where The Elements of Style makes another appearance.
Sources: Wikipedia, Cornell University’s E.B. White Collection, and contemporary reporting cited throughout. Last updated July 2026.
E.B. White, born Elwyn Brooks White on July 11, 1899 in Mount Vernon, New York, was an American essayist and children’s author best known for Charlotte’s Web (1952), Stuart Little (1945), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), as well as for revising The Elements of Style in 1959. He died on October 1, 1985, at age 86, at his farm in North Brooklin, Maine, after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. His nickname “Andy” came from a Cornell University tradition of calling every student surnamed White after the school’s co-founder, Andrew Dickson White.
“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog.”
— E.B. White, in the preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941)
Quick facts
Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do
White’s first book, co-written with his New Yorker colleague James Thurber, gently parodies the era’s flood of pop-psychology and sex-manual writing. It was written partly to poke fun at the couple’s own magazine and the earnest self-help tone of the 1920s.
Mostly of historical interest now — it’s a period piece, and you need some familiarity with 1920s psychology fads to catch every joke. But it’s a useful reminder that White spent his twenties writing comic pieces before he became “the Charlotte’s Web guy,” and that his humor could be broad as well as precise.
One Man’s Meat
A collection of White’s monthly columns for Harper’s Magazine, written after he moved his family from New York City to a saltwater farm in North Brooklin, Maine, in 1938. The essays cover farming, the approach of the Second World War, and rural life observed with a journalist’s eye.
This is where White’s mature voice really arrives — plain, observant, quietly funny, never showing off. It’s also the book to read if you want to understand where Charlotte’s Web actually came from: the farm, the animals, and the daily business of raising and sometimes losing livestock are all here first, in nonfiction form.
Stuart Little
A New York family gives birth to Stuart, who looks and acts almost exactly like a mouse, and follows him on a series of small adventures, including a quest to find a bird named Margalo. White said the character first appeared to him in a dream on a train journey years before he wrote the book down.
Odder and more melancholy than most people remember — it doesn’t resolve neatly, and that ambiguous, open-road ending was controversial with some of White’s original editors. Worth reading as an adult specifically because it refuses the tidy children’s-book ending you expect.
Essay
Here Is New York
A single long essay, originally written for Holiday magazine, capturing New York City in the sweltering summer of 1948. It’s frequently cited as one of the best short pieces ever written about the city, and its closing meditation on the atomic age reads eerily today.
Genuinely one of my favorite pieces of American nonfiction, of any length. White wrote it in a hotel room in a few sweaty days and it shows — there’s an urgency under the elegant sentences. If you only ever read one E.B. White essay, make it this one; it’s short enough for a single sitting and it will change how you notice a city.
His most famous book
Charlotte’s Web
A spider named Charlotte saves a pig named Wilbur from slaughter by weaving words of praise into her web above his sty. It has sold tens of millions of copies, is frequently named the best-selling children’s paperback of all time in the United States, and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
White partly drew on his own failed attempt to save a sick pig on his Maine farm, an experience he’d already written about in the 1948 essay “Death of a Pig.” That real grief is why the book doesn’t flinch from Charlotte’s death at the end — White refused his editors’ requests to soften it, and the book is better and more honest for it. If you’ve only seen the film adaptations, the text is quieter and sadder than you’d expect.
The Elements of Style
White’s former Cornell English professor, William Strunk Jr., originally self-published this slim guide to grammar and composition in 1918. In 1959, a New Yorker editor asked White to revise and expand it for a general audience; White added his own material, including the famous chapter “An Approach to Style.” It has since sold millions of copies and remains a standard reference in American classrooms and newsrooms.
White himself called his involvement “a fluke,” but his additions are exactly why the book still gets read: Strunk’s original rules are useful but dry, and White’s chapter on style is the part people actually quote. Worth owning, but read it as a set of opinions from two specific writers, not an objective law of English — several of its rules are more Strunk’s taste than settled grammar.
The Trumpet of the Swan
Louis, a trumpeter swan born without a voice, learns to read, write, and eventually play a real trumpet to communicate and win the heart of another swan. It won the 1971 Sequoyah Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Children’s Books.
The least well-known of White’s three children’s books, and unfairly so — it’s the most optimistic of the three, concerned less with mortality than with finding a way to be heard when you’re built differently from everyone around you. A good one to hand to a kid who’s already read the other two and wants more.
Frequently asked questions
Who is E.B. White?
E.B. White, born Elwyn Brooks White, was an American essayist, contributing editor for The New Yorker, and author of the children’s classics Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. He also revised the widely used writing guide The Elements of Style.
What is E.B. White’s real name?
His full name was Elwyn Brooks White. He disliked “Elwyn” and used the initials E.B. professionally for most of his career; friends and family called him “Andy.”
What does “E.B.” stand for in E.B. White?
The initials stand for Elwyn Brooks, his given first and middle names.
Why was E.B. White called Andy?
At Cornell University, tradition held that any student surnamed White was nicknamed “Andy,” after Andrew Dickson White, the university’s co-founder and first president. E.B. White picked up the nickname as a student and kept it for the rest of his life, saying he never liked his given name Elwyn.
When was E.B. White born?
July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York.
When did E.B. White die, and how?
He died on October 1, 1985, at his farm in North Brooklin, Maine, at age 86, after a long illness with Alzheimer’s disease.
How old was E.B. White when he died?
He was 86 years old.
Where did E.B. White grow up and live?
He was born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, attended Cornell University, and worked in New York City for years before moving with his wife Katharine to a saltwater farm in North Brooklin, Maine, in 1938, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.
Who did E.B. White marry?
He married Katharine Sergeant Angell, a fiction editor at The New Yorker, in November 1929. She continued working at the magazine after their marriage; the couple stayed together until her death in 1977. They had one son, Joel White, a naval architect.
What books did E.B. White write?
His major books, in order, are Is Sex Necessary? (1929, with James Thurber), One Man’s Meat (1942), Stuart Little (1945), Here Is New York (1949), Charlotte’s Web (1952), The Elements of Style (1959 revision, with William Strunk Jr.), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), alongside several essay and letter collections published later in his life.
When did E.B. White write Charlotte’s Web, and why?
Charlotte’s Web was published in 1952. White drew on his own experience farming in Maine, including a sick pig he was unable to save, an event he had already written about in his 1948 essay “Death of a Pig.”
Where did E.B. White get the idea for Stuart Little?
White said the character came to him in a dream on a train journey, years before he sat down to write the book, which was eventually published in 1945.
Was E.B. White religious?
He was largely skeptical of organized religion, though he held a deep, lifelong respect for the natural world, which shows up throughout his farm essays and children’s books.
Who plays E.B. White in the film Blue Moon?
In Richard Linklater’s 2025 film Blue Moon, about lyricist Lorenz Hart, E.B. “Andy” White is played by actor Patrick Kennedy. The film imagines White as one of several friends Hart talks to at Sardi’s bar in New York on the opening night of Oklahoma! in March 1943.
Is there a video interview with E.B. White?
No filmed interview of E.B. White is known to exist. He was famously camera-shy and avoided interviewers, photographers, and public appearances for most of his life. The closest equivalent is a written interview he gave to The Paris Review in 1969, “The Art of the Essay No. 1,” in which he discussed his approach to writing for both adults and children.
Is E.B. White still alive?
No. He died on October 1, 1985.
More from the shelf
Reading listBest Essays to Read
Reading listBest Books About Friendship
Reading listBooks About Grief
Written by Lisanne Swart
Lisanne curates books for curious readers at lisannewart.com, publishing original reading lists, author deep-dives, and honest recommendations since 2021. Read more about Lisanne.
