Charlotte’s Web

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Charlotte’s Web

E. B. White

Children’s

Aug 8, 2018

Someone once called E. B. White the most companionable of writers, and the adjective fits him like a glove. His conversational genius set the enduring tone of The New Yorker in the magazine’s formative years, and his unassumingly authoritative personal essays gave the genre a genuine American accent (see “Death of a Pig” or “Here Is New York,” for starters). White’s command of literary etiquette was so sure, he could even make entertaining a book of grammar and usage instruction (The Elements of Style). In person as in prose, his mastery was modestly worn, and one might easily imagine his taking pleasure in the fact that his legacy will likely rest on the books he wrote for children: Stuart Little (1945), The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), and, especially, Charlotte’s Web, which, like the spider at the center of its enchanting narrative, is in a class by itself. White’s attention to nature’s truths is surpassed only by his allegiance to the human virtues—friendship, constancy, love—that can temper them. Deservedly beloved, Charlotte’s Web is both winning and wise, just like its heroine.

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