Here Is New York

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1948

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Key Figures

E. B. White

Elwyn Brooks White, commonly known as E. B. White, was an American author. He is best remembered for his contributions to children’s literature as well as his work revising, editing, and expanding an instruction manual of writing styles, The Elements of Style, authored by William Strunk Jr., White’s former English professor (1918). White was also a frequent contributor and editor for The New Yorker and a columnist for Harper’s.

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, in 1895, White graduated from Cornell University in 1921 and went on to work as a reporter for various newspapers before joining the staff of The New Yorker. In 1929, White married Katharine Angell, a literary editor at The New Yorker who had read his application for the publication and endorsed his hiring. They raised a son together, born in 1930, as well as Angell’s two children from a previous marriage.

Prior to his career as a children’s book writer, White published a number of books of essays and poetry. His first book for young readers, Stuart Little, was published in 1945. Charlotte’s Web, which won a Newbery Honor, was released in 1952. White published his third children's book, The Trumpet of the Swan, in 1970. During these years, White continued to publish works for adults, including Here Is New York (1949), a revised edition of The Elements of Style (1959), and collections of his letters and essays. White’s accolades include the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal and a Newbery Honor.

White’s longtime contributions to The New Yorker reveal his deep connection to New York City, where he lived for much of his young adult life and returned to after moving to Maine with his family. His reportage and musings on the culture of the city for The New Yorker reveal both the intimate knowledge of an insider and the broad gaze of an outsider. This dual role is evident in Here Is New York, a text which draws on White’s perspective on his subject. White, as someone who came to New York City from elsewhere, brings curiosity and contexts to his observations of the city at a particular moment in history.

Katharine Angell

Katharine Sergeant Angell White, born in Winchester, Massachusetts, in 1892, was a writer and editor at The New Yorker. From 1929 until her death in 1977, she was married to White.

Angell attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1914. She married Ernest Angell in 1915, and together they had two children. In 1925, soon after the founding of The New Yorker, Angell began working as the magazine’s first fiction editor, as well as a writer. Upon receiving a submission by White, Angell suggested to Harold Ross, co-founder of The New Yorker, that White be hired. Though he did not initially accept the role, White eventually joined the magazine’s staff.

During her time at The New Yorker, Angell championed the writers John Updike, John O’Hara, and John Cheever. She also worked with Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita (1955), and Mary McCarthy, author of The Group (1963). Angell shepherded work through the editing process, contributing to The New Yorker’s reputation as a publisher of exemplary short fiction.

In 1929, after an affair with White, Angell divorced her first husband. She and White married soon after. Angell and White had a son, born in 1930, whom they raised along with her son and daughter from her first marriage. Roger Angell, Angell’s son with Ernest Angell, was later himself a fiction editor at The New Yorker as well as a baseball writer and a poet. Roger Angell wrote the foreword for a 1999 edition of White’s essay Here Is New York.

A collection of Angell’s writings on gardening, titled Onward and Upward in the Garden, was published posthumously in 1979 with an introduction by White. Angell’s relationship to White was not only romantic but also professional, as she was an early supporter of his work and made his hiring at The New Yorker possible. In addition to their familial bond, Angell’s deep involvement with White’s writing career make her an important figure in his life.