White, E B

White, E(lwyn) B(rooks)

(born July 11, 1899, Mount Vernon, N.Y., U.S.—died Oct. 1, 1985, North Brooklin, Maine) U.S. essayist and literary stylist. White attended Cornell University and in 1927 joined The New Yorker; he would contribute to it and later to Harper's magazine over several decades. He collaborated with James Thurber on Is Sex Necessary? (1929). His novels Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970) are classics of children's literature. White's revision of The Elements of Style (1959) by his professor William Strunk became a standard style manual for writers. He received a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 1978.