E.B. White Biography | Charlotte's Web | Stuart Little | Author Profile | Photo | Children's Books | Classics | Quotes E.B. White Biography Birthdate: July 11, 1899 Birthplace: Mount Vernon, NY E.B. White has warmed your hearts with his classic children's tales. His most famous book, Charlotte's Web , has been made into a movie and is set to hit the silver screen in December 2006. Read more about this wonderful author! E.B. White - Early Beginnings Elwyn Brooks White was the youngest child of a large family . His parents loved kids - that's probably where his passion for writing children's books came from! He graduated from Cornell University in 1921 and worked as a reporter at various publications including The New Yorker, where he fell in love with his editor, Katharine Sergeant Angell, who he later married. E.B. White - From Stuart to Charlotte E.B. White went on to become the most important contributor to The New Yorker during the '30s. Though he was best known for his articles and essays, he tried his hand at writing children's books at the suggestion of his niece.

He wrote his first story in 1945, about a boy named Stuart Little who was the size of a mouse ! In 1952, he wrote one of the most beloved children's books of all time, Charlotte's Web. Both books won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, which is a major award in children's literature. His third and final children's book was The Trumpet of the Swan, which is about a trumpeter swan that's born without a voice . So what does he do? He learns to play the trumpet! After a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, E.B. White passed away on October 1, 1985 - but his classic tales will live on forever. E.B. White - Did U Know? E.B. White lived on a farm , and on that farm there was a barn that inspired many of the characters in his stories. E.B. White had severe stage fright. E.B. White suffered from hypochondria, which is the fear of imaginary illnesses. All three of E.B. White's children's books have been made into movies. Michael J.

Fox was the man behind the voice of Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan featured Reese Witherspoon , and Julia Roberts will be the voice of Charlotte the spider in the upcoming flick! E.B. White Says... "We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry." Related Stories: Aug. 6 2013 11:16 AM E.B. White on Why He Wrote Charlotte's Web By Emily Bazelon The first line of Charlotte’s Web is about preventing a murder. “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” Fern asks her mother. When she learns that he’s going to the hoghouse to kill the runt of a litter born the night before, she chases her father down and talks him out of it. “This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of,” she says. That note of urgency, and farm life realism, courses through the book, giving it the energy that has made it such an eternally beloved, indispensable classic. Now we know that’s just what E.B. White, the author, intended.

In a letter to his editor, Ursula Nordstrom , written in September 1952, a few weeks before the book was published, and posted recently on Letters of Note, White wrote: Advertisement A farm is a peculiar problem for a man who likes animals, because the fate of most livestock is that they are murdered by their benefactors. The creatures may live serenely but they end violently, and the odor of doom hangs about them always. I have kept several pigs, starting them in spring as weanlings and carrying trays to them all through summer and fall. The relationship bothered me. Day by day I became better acquainted with my pig, and he with me, and the fact that the whole adventure pointed toward an eventual piece of double-dealing on my part lent an eerie quality to the thing. I do not like to betray a person or a creature, and I tend to agree with Mr. E.M. Forster that in these times the duty of a man, above all else, is to be reliable. It used to be clear to me, slopping a pig, that as far as the pig was concerned I could not be counted on, and this, as I say, troubled me.

Anyway, the theme of "Charlotte's Web" is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect. White also defended spiders—in particular, Charlotte’s real-life namesake, whom he watched spin a sac for her eggs at his place in the country, and then toted off to New York: How E.B. White Spun 'Charlotte's Web' : NPR How E.B. White Spun 'Charlotte's Web' Embed Embed How E.B. White Spun 'Charlotte's Web' How E.B. White Spun 'Charlotte's Web' Embed Embed The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic By Michael Sims Read An Excerpt In a poll of librarians, teachers, publishers and authors, the trade magazine Publisher's Weekly asked for a list of the best children's books ever published in the United States. Hands down, the No. 1 book was E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Now, a new book called The Story of Charlotte's Web explores how White's masterpiece came to be. One early fall morning in 1949, E.B.

White walked into the barn of his farm in Maine and saw a spider web. That in itself was nothing new, but this web, with its elaborate loops and whorls that glistened with early morning dew, caught his attention. Weeks passed until one cold October evening when he noticed that the spider was spinning what turned out to be an egg sac. White never saw the spider again and, so, when he had to return later that fall to New York City to his job as a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine, White took out a razor blade and cut the silken egg sac out of the web. He put the sac in an empty candy box, punched some holes in it, and absent-mindedly put the box atop his bedroom bureau in New York. Article continues after sponsorship Weeks later, a movement on that bureau alerted him to the fact that tiny spiderlings were making a Great Escape through the air holes. White was delighted at this affirmation of life and left the hundreds of barn spiderlings alone for the next week or so — to spin webs from his hair brush to his nail scissors to his mirror — until, finally, the cleaning lady complained.

Thus was hatched the idea for Charlotte's Web, White's magical meditation on the passage of time, mortality and the great gift of finding a "true friend" in this world. However, as Michael Sims tells us in his wonderful new book called The Story of Charlotte's Web, there was also a much longer incubation period for White's classic — a period that began with his isolated childhood as the youngest of seven children; the snappy creative bustle of the New York newspaper world in the 1920s, which gave White his career and his writing role models; and White's own lifelong struggle with anxiety. That anxiety was soothed, in part, by writing and by the company of animals (except, that is, for rats — take that, Templeton!). If you love Charlotte's Web — and, please, if you don't, just get help now! — Sims' lively and detailed excursion into the mystery of how White's classic came to be is a perfect read for this season: full of grass and insects, pigs and summer rain. Michael Sims' other nonfiction books include In the Womb: Animals and Apollo's Fire. He has edited several anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian fiction and poetry.

Dennis Wile hide caption toggle caption Dennis Wile Michael Sims' other nonfiction books include In the Womb: Animals and Apollo's Fire. He has edited several anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian fiction and poetry. Dennis Wile The first two-thirds or so of The Story of Charlotte's Web recounts White's life up to his 50s, when he began writing his masterpiece. Good as it is, the final section of Sims' book is the real revelation — not only about the influences on Charlotte's Web, but about just how hard it was for White to write despite the fact that his style always seemed effortless. White was encouraged to attempt children's fiction by his wife, Katherine White, who was the fiction editor of The New Yorker and a regular reviewer of children's literature. She had urged him to write his first children's book, Stuart Little, which was published in 1945 and had taken him over six years to write. White also took inspiration from the 1920s newspaper columnist Don Marquis, who wrote acclaimed stories about a poetic typing cockroach named Archy.

White was adamant that, like Archy, his fictional animal characters should not be cute but should remain true to their predatory and, in the case of Wilbur, their manure-loving, messy nature. The notes that White made for Charlotte's Web — some of which Sims reprints here — show a multitude of false starts and cross outs. White finished the first draft of the novel in 1951 and then let it sit for a year. He said in a letter to his patient editor: "I've recently finished another children's book, but have put it away to ripen (let the body heat out of it). It doesn't satisfy me the way it is and I think eventually I shall rewrite it pretty much." When Charlotte's Web finally came out in October 1952, most of the reviews were laudatory, except for one written by Anne Carroll Moore, the influential children's division librarian for the New York Public Library. Years earlier, Moore had panned Stuart Little and now she slammed Charlotte's Web for leaving the human character of Fern "undeveloped." Charlotte A. Cavatica: Bloodthirsty, Wise And True White's own later estimation of his work is, perhaps, most touching.

In old age, when he was suffering from Alzheimer's, White liked to have his own essays and books read to him. Sometimes, White would ask who wrote what he was listening to, and his chief reader, his son Joe, would tell him, "You did, Dad." Sims says White "would think about this odd fact for a moment and sometimes murmur, 'Not bad.' " Excerpt: 'The Story Of Charlotte's Web' June 27, 20113:42 PM ET Michael Sims The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic By Michael Sims Walker & Co. List Price: $25 My wife and I were in Maine, standing in the barn that had belonged to E. B. White and chatting with the current owners, when I backed up to get a better view for a photograph and hit my head on something. Turning around, I saw a heavy old rope dangling in front of me, and I glanced up to where it was looped through a ring attached to a beam over the barn doors. Then I realized what I was staring at.

I turned to the South Carolina couple who had bought the White farm after his death in 1985. "Is this—" Mary and Robert Gallant smiled and nodded. "Fern and Avery's rope? Yes." "So it was real too." I was in the barn that had inspired Charlotte's Web because, a few years earlier, I had been reading E. B. White's collected letters when I ran across his reply to a letter from schoolchildren: "I didn't like spiders at first, but then I began watching one of them, and soon saw what a wonderful creature she was and what a skillful weaver. I named her Charlotte." "Wait a minute," I said aloud to the empty room. "There was a real Charlotte?" This question was my first step toward discovering the story behind Charlotte's Web. Was there a real Charlotte, I wanted to know, or was White merely performing in this letter? As I traced the inspirations, discoveries, and research that White brought to one of the most acclaimed children's books of the twentieth century, I soon learned that there had been numerous Charlottes and Wilburs and Templetons in his life — but that there was indeed a particular clever spider who helped inspire the book.

Robert and Mary Gallant showed us the barn cellar, where White kept the pigs that inspired Wilbur. We saw the stalls for sheep and cattle, the doorway that had held the webs of countless orb weavers, the path through the woods, the rocky pasture with its view of Allen Cove and misty Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island. We stayed for a while in the boat house down by the water. As I sat at the plank table White had built, I noticed that a patterned brown spider hung motionless in a web to my right. Many novelists admit that their characters are inspired by real individuals, but it seldom occurs to us that the authors of children's fantasy might make the same confession. Yet examples abound. Brave and levelheaded Alice was based upon the young Miss Liddell. The name of the Dodo in Wonderland reflects Lewis Carroll's stuttering trouble in pronouncing his true surname, Dodgson. Christopher Robin was not only a real boy but actually often played inside a large hollow tree on the Milne property — and Eeyore is gloomy because a broken wire in Christopher's toy donkey made its head hang low.

Most of the characters in Beatrix Potter's stories she drew from life as well, because she spent her days with rabbits and ducks on Hill Top Farm in the Lake District. So perhaps it isn't surprising to learn that, while composing his most popular book, E. B. White was obeying a cherished maxim: Write about what you know. He knew his characters from the barns and stables where he spent much of his childhood and adulthood. He knew a barn's earthy smells and sounds, the variety of its animal population. Charlotte's Web was hardly a simple report from the barn, as White claimed, but it grew from his experiences there with many animals. His return to a barn in adulthood ignited smoldering memories of the stable in his childhood home in Mount Vernon, New York.

By creating a fictional hybrid of the most enchanted settings from both childhood and adulthood, White became one of the rare authors who solve what the American critic and essayist Clifton Fadiman once called "the standing problem of the juvenile-fantasy writer: how to find, not another Alice, but another rabbit hole." White's attitude toward nature, with its unblinking response to the inevitability of death, strikes me as realistically hardheaded despite being wrapped in anthropomorphism. A farmer who wrote children's fantasies needed both ways of thinking. During my research I became fascinated by other aspects of White's personality as well. From childhood to old age, he was painfully shy, terrified of speaking in public or before a microphone — yet hugely ambitious and willing to try almost anything when no one was looking. Afraid of commitment and romance and confrontation, he hid behind animals even in his early love poems and letters to his wife. Charlotte's Web is about animals because throughout his long life animals were E. B. White's favorite acquaintances. He had plenty of friends; he got along well with editors and other colleagues; he was happily married and a proud father, stepfather, and eventually grandfather.

But he liked to spend as much time as possible around nonhuman creatures. "This boy," wrote White about himself as a child, "felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people." It's all the more impressive, therefore, how many people have felt a kinship with E. B. White. The book for which most people cherish him fits into a long-standing tradition in literature — tales of animals who think and speak like human beings. From Aesop's ungrateful eagle through the trickster fox Reynard in the Middle Ages, from the autobiography of Black Beauty in the nineteenth century to the quest of Despereaux in the twenty-first, talking animals have accompanied us throughout history. Folklore around the world laments our loss of innocence in the golden age of humanity, when we could speak with our fellow creatures. In Charlotte's Web this lost era is childhood. "Remember that writing is translation," White wrote to a student while composing this tale about the animals in his barn, "and the opus to be translated is yourself." The Story of Charlotte's Web explores how White translated his own passions and contradictions, delights and fears, into a book that has had astonishingly broad appeal across age groups and national boundaries.

He knew that empathy is a creative act, an entering into another's reality. Empathy and curiosity happily coexisted in his spacious imagination. He studied the lives of spiders for a year before writing his novel. "I discovered, quite by accident," he explained, "that reality and fantasy make good bedfellows." White himself emphasized that biographical writing is always a matter of interpretation — and he was wary of it. As I wrote this book, I became aware that, although I was determined to portray Elwyn Brooks White as accurately as possible, he was also becoming a character in a particular story I wanted to tell. I invented nothing; to the best of my ability, I misrepresented nothing. But by focusing on particular aspects of his career, such as his interest in natural history and farming, I have produced an account inevitably biased toward this facet of his life. His writings about government and civil rights, for example, find little room here, and beyond his childhood I don't explore his relationship with his family in depth.

I hesitated over presuming to refer to White by his first name, but this is a personal book about his intimate daily life, so in childhood I call him Elwyn and in adulthood Andy — the latter a nickname he acquired at Cornell and kept for the rest of his life. This book is a biographical narrative distilled from hundreds of sources, but at every stage I tried to keep in mind that these people did not know what was going to happen next. More than a quarter century after his death, E. B. White lives in our cultural dialogue. Some of his personal essays are canonized anthology standards, and to the connoisseur of the genre he stands beside Montaigne. Students underline every axiom in The Elements of Style. Charlotte's Web is better known than Moby-Dick or Huckleberry Finn and usually described as "beloved." How beloved? Charlotte's Web has already sold many millions of copies; in annual summaries of bestselling children's books in the United States, often it still outsells even Winnie-the-Pooh. For Publishers Weekly, a poll of librarians, teachers, publishers, and authors, asked to list the best children's books ever published in the United States, set Charlotte's Web firmly in first place.

A 2000 survey listed Charlotte's Web as the bestselling children's book in U.S. history, with Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan both following in the top one hundred. As of 2010, Charlotte's Web has been translated into thirty-five foreign languages. Thus every day somewhere in the world, countless children and adults are opening the book and turning to the first page and reading in English or Norwegian or Chinese or Braille: 'Where's Papa going with that ax?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast... Excerpted from The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims. Copyright 2011 by Michael Sims. Reprinted by permission of Walker & Co. ‘The Story of Charlotte’s Web:’ How E.B. White conceived and wrote a children’s classic | The Seattle Times ‘The Story of Charlotte’s Web:’ How E.B.

White conceived and wrote a children’s classic Originally published July 2, 2011 at 7:00 pm Updated July 2, 2011 at 9:01 pm Michael Sims' "The Story of Charlotte's Web" chronicles the wellsprings of inspiration for the author of the children's classic "Charlotte's Web" — E.B. White, a man who traveled in the most sophisticated circles but always retreated to the company of animals on his Maine farm. Share story ‘The Story of Charlotte’s Web: E.B. White’s Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic’ by Michael Sims Walker & Co., 307 pp., $25 “Animals are a weakness with me,” E.B. White said, a statement that his life and writings bear out. It is not surprising to learn, then, that in writing about animals (and spiders) in what has become his most popular book, “Charlotte’s Web,” he was to a large extent writing about himself. Most Read Stories Unlimited Digital Access. $1 for 4 weeks. First published nearly 60 years ago, “Charlotte’s Web” perennially sells tens of thousands of copies around the world.

It has been translated into 35 languages. In a Publishers Weekly poll of librarians, teachers, publishers and authors it was ranked as the best children’s book ever published in the United States. It is beyond popular; it is beloved. In “The Story of Charlotte’s Web,” Michael Sims does exactly what his title says: He tells the wellsprings — familial, psychological, environmental, historical, educational, emotional — of the famous little novel about how a spider named Charlotte saved a pig named Wilbur from being rendered into bacon. Sims, editor or author of many other books (“Apollo’s Fire,” “Darwin’s Orchestra”), does more than that. Besides providing a pocket biography of White, he explains what writing “Charlotte’s Web” meant to the author and what reading it means to its young readers, things that are two sides of the same coin: The “standing problem of juvenile-fantasy” fiction, critic Clifton Fadiman said, was finding “not another Alice, but another rabbit hole.” White found it — for himself, of course, but also for his readers. Elwyn Brooks White grew up among animals in the early years of the 20th century at his family’s comfortable home in Mount Vernon, N.Y.

A shy, fearful, solitary boy, the last of seven children, he “felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people,” as he wrote about himself years later. That pattern and outlook continued, Sims writes, throughout a life “plagued by wild fantasies and indefinable nostalgia” and a “vague sense of yearning and loss.” Even after becoming a celebrated writer for The New Yorker magazine (and marrying its fiction editor, Katharine Angell) and moving to a small farm on the coast of Maine, to flee “the complexities of adult life … he hid behind animals.” He loved the barn and taking care of the animals there. Sims’ writing captures some of White’s affection for his creatures and fits the mood of his subject nicely: “Flotillas of black coots … Chittering squadrons of barn swallows.” White’s inveterate curiosity eventually led him to study the spiders in his barn and their web-weaving. Since he didn’t know spiders like he did farm animals, he researched in scientific tomes about them. But it was another invertebrate that was an early inspiration for Charlotte — Archy, the famous cockroach of newspaper columnist Don Marquis.

It was the literate cockroach’s wit that attracted White, but Archy also fit into the literary tradition of talking animals that had beguiled him since childhood. Another impulse also drove the book: White was troubled by the morality of raising and then slaughtering animals that only a short time before he had lovingly tended and that, in a sense, had taken him into their confidence. Such concerns percolated into “Charlotte’s Web”: How might a pig be saved from the farmer’s plans for it? Sims then carefully documents White’s creative process: how he added and subtracted, tried this and deleted that. As always in writing he believed that directness and honesty would carry the day. “Morality stalked the scene from the first line,” Sims says — that line is, “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” — but “overall Andy’s theme was the joy of being alive.” White’s masterpiece is almost unthinkable without the pitch-perfect illustrations of Garth Williams (who had also illustrated “Stuart Little”), which materially added to its success (and to Williams’ reputation). But ultimately, the author concludes, “Charlotte’s Web” is “a summary of what it felt like to be E.B.

White”; it “preserved in amber his response to the world.” Roger K. Miller is a novelist and freelance writer and reviewer. by Roger K. Miller Charlotte's Web, By E. B. White, Kate DiCamillo , Illustrated by Garth Williams: HarperCollins Children's Books See More This beloved book by E. B. White, author of Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan, is a classic of children's literature that is "just about perfect." Some Pig. Humble. Radiant. These are the words in Charlotte's Web, high up in Zuckerman's barn. Charlotte's spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, who simply wants a friend. They also express the love of a girl named Fern, who saved Wilbur's life when he was born the runt of his litter. E. B. White's Newbery Honor Book is a tender novel of friendship, love, life, and death that will continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. It contains illustrations by Garth Williams, the acclaimed illustrator of E.B. White's Stuart Little and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, among many other books.

Supports the Common Core State Standards Book Description Sixty years ago, on October 15, 1952, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web was published. It's gone on to become one of the most beloved children's books of all time. To celebrate this milestone, the renowned Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo has written a heartfelt and poignant tribute to the book that is itself a beautiful translation of White's own view of the world—of the joy he took in the change of seasons, in farm life, in the miracles of life and death, and, in short, the glory of everything. We are proud to include Kate DiCamillo's foreword in the 60th anniversary editions of this cherished classic. Charlotte's Web is the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur—and of Wilbur's dear friend Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider who lived with Wilbur in the barn.

With the help of Templeton, the rat who never did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him, and by a wonderfully clever plan of her own, Charlotte saved the life of Wilbur, who by this time had grown up to quite a pig. How all this comes about is Mr. White's story. It is a story of the magic of childhood on the farm. The thousands of children who loved Stuart Little, the heroic little city mouse, will be entranced with Charlotte the spider, Wilbur the pig, and Fern, the little girl who understood their language. The forty-seven black-and-white drawings by Garth Williams have all the wonderful detail and warmhearted appeal that children love in his work. Incomparably matched to E.B. White's marvelous story, they speak to each new generation, softly and irresistibly. HarperCollins Children's: Charlotte's Web ::: by E.B. White EMAIL THIS PAGE In his classic and beloved novel, E. B. White tells the memorable story of Wilbur, a little pig who becomes famous with the help of his clever friend Charlotte and their chatty animal neighbors. As the runt of the litter, Wilbur struggles to survive from the very beginning.

Fern begs her father, Mr. Arable, to raise Wilbur and nurse him to health. Fern succeeds and Wilbur moves to Zuckerman Farm, where he learns the true meaning of friendship from the wise gray spider Charlotte. When it becomes apparent that Wilbur is being well fed for a reason, Charlotte and Wilbur are determined to foil Mr. Zuckerman’s plans. With the help of Charlotte and her “terrific” webs, Templeton the rat, and other barnyard friends, Wilbur becomes the prize-winning pig of the County Fair and the most famous pig ever. Lessons of friendship, loyalty, and truth bind this story together and show readers that friends come in all shapes and sizes. Charlotte's Web: Summary, Characters & Author - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com Charlotte's Web: Summary, Characters & Author Watch short & fun videos Start Your Free Trial Today An error occurred trying to load this video. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. You must create an account to continue watching Register for a free trial Are you a student or a teacher?

I am a student Start Your Free Trial To Continue Watching As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed. Coming up next: Christopher Isherwood: Biography & Books You're on a roll. Keep up the good work! Your next lesson will play in 10 seconds 0:01 Charlotte's Web By E.B. White 1:01 Summary Add to Add to Add to Want to watch this again later? Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. Custom Courses are courses that you create from Study.com lessons. Use them just like other courses to track progress, access quizzes and exams, and share content. Teachers Organize and share selected lessons with your class. Make planning easier by creating your own custom course. Students Create a new course from any lesson page or your dashboard. From any lesson page: Click "Add to" located below the video player and follow the prompts to name your course and save your lesson. From your dashboard: Click on the "Custom Courses" tab, then click "Create course". Next, go to any lesson page and begin adding lessons.

Edit your Custom Course directly from your dashboard. Personalize: Name your Custom Course and add an optional description or learning objective. Organize: Create chapters to group lesson within your course. Remove and reorder chapters and lessons at any time. Share your Custom Course or assign lessons and chapters. Teacher Edition: Share or assign lessons and chapters by clicking the "Teacher" tab on the lesson or chapter page you want to assign. Students' quiz scores and video views will be trackable in your "Teacher" tab. Premium Edition: You can share your Custom Course by copying and pasting the course URL. Only Study.com members will be able to access the entire course. Create an account to start this course today Try it free for 5 days! Lesson Transcript Instructor: Francesca Marinaro Francesca M. Marinaro has a PhD in English from the University of Florida and has been teaching English composition and Literature since 2007. E. B. White's ''Charlotte's Web'' is one of the most famous classics of children's literature, and has been translated into multiple languages and made into several films. Learn about the novel and its popularity, meet some of the main characters, and test your knowledge with a quick quiz.

Charlotte's Web By E.B. White Charlotte's Web, was written by E.B. White and published in 1952. When praising this novel in the New York Times, fellow author Eudora Welty described it as 'a book about friendship on earth, affection, and protection, adventure and miracle, life and death, trust and treachery, pleasure and pain, and the passage of time…just about magical in the way it is done'. Welty's description touches on the themes, heart-felt storytelling, and beloved characters of a classic that continues to capture the minds and imaginations of children. Charlotte's Web is considered White's most famous novel. It's sold more than 45 million copies since its first publication, has been translated into 23 languages, and has been made into several film adaptations. In 1970, the novel earned White the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, one of the highest honors in children's literature. Summary Charlotte's Web is the story of Wilbur the pig and his friendship with Fern Arable, the little girl who adopts him, and his barnyard friends - most importantly, Charlotte the spider.

When a pig gives birth to a litter of piglets at the Arable farm, Fern's father, Mr. Arable, decides to slaughter Wilbur because he is the runt, but Fern persuades him to let her keep him. Knowing that the pig will eventually need to be slaughtered for his meat, Mr. Arable tries to make the separation gentler for Fern; when Wilbur is strong, he's sent to live at the farm of Mr. Zuckerman, Fern's uncle, where Fern goes to visit him as often as she can. Wilbur still misses her, however, and is lonely in his new home until a talking spider named Charlotte befriends him, and he gets to know the other barnyard animals as well. Once Wilbur learns of his fate to be slaughtered in the winter, Charlotte agrees to help him, and she begins spinning words in her web to describe Wilbur, the first being 'Some Pig.' When Zuckerman notices the message in the web over Wilbur's pigpen, he thinks it's a miracle. Charlotte continues spinning miraculous messages in her web, like 'terrific' and 'radiant,' attracting much attention.

Charlotte enlists the help of the barn rat, Templeton, who scours the dump for labels and slips of cast off paper that she can use to copy the words. When Wilbur is entered into the county fair, Charlotte and Templeton accompany him so that Charlotte can continue her work and make Wilbur famous. At the fair, her messages draw many crowds, and Wilbur is praised by all who see him. During this time, Charlotte is spinning a sack for the eggs she will be laying, but she is also reaching the end of her life and sadly tells Wilbur that she won't be returning to the barn with him after the fair. She entrusts him with her eggs, and he takes them back to the Zuckerman barn, guarding them until they hatch. Most of the spiders leave, but three stay behind and befriend Wilbur, who lives a long and happy life surrounded by Charlotte's descendants. Following in a long tradition of animal stories in children's literature, White uses the talking barnyard characters and descriptions of farm life and the anatomy of a spider both to awaken the imagination and to teach readers about the rural life he loved so much. Characters There is a wide variety of characters in Charlotte's Web.

First, let's take a look at the animals: Wilbur, the story's main character, is born the runt of a litter of pigs and thought too weak to live until Fern takes pity on him. He's full of life and curious about the world around him and loves his friends and his barnyard life. When he first learns his fate, he cries, and the other barnyard animals tease him because they think him foolish for not understanding his place, but with the help of Charlotte, he manages to avoid being slaughtered. Charlotte is a barn spider who lives on a web above Wilbur's pigpen. She becomes like a mother to lonely Wilbur, telling him stories and singing to him, and teaching him about life and the loyalty of friendship. Templeton is the greedy rat who agrees to help Charlotte find messages to write about Wilbur in her Web. However, he does so only when Charlotte convinces him that keeping Wilbur alive will benefit him because as long as Wilbur lives, Templeton can eat the food from his trough. The unlikely cooperation between Wilbur, Charlotte, and Templeton both teaches readers about the importance of friendship and illustrates the relationship between animals, showing the ways that all creatures depend on one another for survival.

Now, let's take a look at some of the human characters. While most of the story focuses on the barnyard animals, the most important human characters are the Arables and the Zuckermans. The Arable farm is where Wilbur is born, and the Zuckerman farm is where he goes to live once he's old enough and where he meets Charlotte, Templeton, and a host of other barnyard friends. × E. B. White on Why He Wrote Charlotte’s Web, Plus His Rare Illustrated Manuscripts – Brain Pickings E. B. White on Why He Wrote Charlotte’s Web, Plus His Rare Illustrated Manuscripts “A book is a sneeze.” By Maria Popova Legendary editor and reconstructionist Ursula Nordstrom , who headed Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973, is celebrated as the single most influential champion of innovation in children’s book publishing in the past century. Her vision ushered in a new era of imagination of literature for young readers and brought to life such timeless classics as Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon and Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.

More than merely an editor, Nordstrom, who famously cultivated the insecure genius of young Maurice Sendak , wore the hats of friend, therapist, confidante, and tireless defender of her young authors. Among her most memorable creative feats, however, is Charlotte’s Web ( public library ) by E.B. White (July 11, 1899–October 1, 1985), published on October 15, 1952. E. B. White’s second draft for the beginning of Charlotte’s Web, found in The Annotated Charlotte’s Web, 1994. A few weeks before the book’s release, however, the Harper & Row publicity department expressed unease about White’s choice of protagonist. Worried that a spider might revolt readers and critics, they asked him to explain his choice.

On September 29, White sent Nordstrom a short note in response to her concern that the book endpapers are too bright (but not without an endearing Whitean tease: “I’m not sure that anybody thinks about endpaper except publishers, and probably not more than 1800 people in the United States have ever heard the word ‘endpaper’”), then proceeded to address the PR people’s unease in a lengthy explanation of why he wrote a book featuring a spider. The letter, unearthed by Letters of Note , is itself an absolute masterpiece of prose and testament to White’s character, bespeaking at once his elegant command of the written word and his equally famed love of animals . (White’s bemused dismay at the inquiry was sure to fall on an understanding ear, as Nordstrom had her own feisty grievances with publishers’ unimaginative shallowness .) E. B. White’s drawings of the vectors of the web-spinning process, found in The Annotated Charlotte’s Web, 1994. I have been asked to tell how I came to write “Charlotte’s Web.” Well, I like animals, and it would be odd if I failed to write about them.

Animals are a weakness with me, and when I got a place in the country I was quite sure animals would appear, and they did. A farm is a peculiar problem for a man who likes animals, because the fate of most livestock is that they are murdered by their benefactors. The creatures may live serenely but they end violently, and the odor of doom hangs about them always. I have kept several pigs, starting them in spring as weanlings and carrying trays to them all through summer and fall. The relationship bothered me. Day by day I became better acquainted with my pig, and he with me, and the fact that the whole adventure pointed toward an eventual piece of double-dealing on my part lent an eerie quality to the thing. I do not like to betray a person or a creature, and I tend to agree with Mr. E.M. Forster that in these times the duty of a man, above all else, is to be reliable. It used to be clear to me, slopping a pig, that as far as the pig was concerned I could not be counted on, and this, as I say, troubled me.

Anyway, the theme of “Charlotte’s Web” is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect. As for Charlotte herself, I had never paid much attention to spiders until a few years ago. Once you begin watching spiders, you haven’t time for much else — the world is really loaded with them. I do not find them repulsive or revolting, any more than I find anything in nature repulsive or revolting, and I think it is too bad that children are often corrupted by their elders in this hate campaign. Spiders are skilful, amusing and useful, and only in rare instances has anybody ever come to grief because of a spider. One cold October evening I was lucky enough to see Aranea Cavatica spin her egg sac and deposit her eggs. (I did not know her name at the time, but I admired her, and later Mr. Willis J. Gertsch of the American Museum of Natural History told me her name.) When I saw that she was fixing to become a mother, I got a stepladder and an extension light and had an excellent view of the whole business.

A few days later, when it was time to return to New York, not wishing to part with my spider, I took a razor blade, cut the sac adrift from the underside of the shed roof, put spider and sac in a candy box, and carried them to town. I tossed the box on my dresser. Some weeks later I was surprised and pleased to find that Charlotte’s daughters were emerging from the air holes in the cover of the box. They strung tiny lines from my comb to my brush, from my brush to my mirror, and from my mirror to my nail scissors. They were very busy and almost invisible, they were so small. We all lived together happily for a couple of weeks, and then somebody whose duty it was to dust my dresser balked, and I broke up the show. At the present time, three of Charlotte’s granddaughters are trapping at the foot of the stairs in my barn cellar, where the morning light, coming through the east window, illuminates their embroidery and makes it seem even more wonderful than it is. I haven’t told why I wrote the book, but I haven’t told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze. E. B.

White’s notes on web weaving, found in The Annotated Charlotte’s Web, 1994. White, in fact, had little patience for the objections some critics, librarians, teachers, and parents had to the book’s protagonist and his choice to tackle the subject of death in a children’s book, which he saw as an infringement on his creative vision and integrity as a writer. In an unpublished letter to Nordstrom, cited in The Annotated Charlotte’s Web ( public library ), White dismisses these concerns with his characteristically concise, sharp-witted satire: I am working on a new book about a boa constrictor and a litter of hyenas. The boa constrictor swallows the babies one by one, and the mother hyena dies laughing.

Question: Who wrote the children's classic 'Charlotte's Web'?
Answer: E.B. White