The World She Edited

Starred review from July 1, 2024
A multifaceted portrait of influential New Yorker fiction editor Katharine S. White (1892-1977). The storied origins of the New Yorker, established in 1925 by Harold Ross, have been extensively chronicled, including by several books delving into the lives of its idiosyncratic editors. Though initially envisioned as a sophisticated exploration of New York's vibrant cultural landscape, the magazine earned a literary reputation that soared under White's stewardship from 1925 to 1960, gaining renown for publishing serious fiction and poetry. Despite joining Ross shortly after its inception, White's considerable contributions have not received enough recognition. In this captivating new biography, Reading, author of The Mark Inside, finally shines a well-deserved spotlight on White's remarkable career, portraying her as a modern woman whose early feminist roots traced to her college years at Bryn Mawr. White's keen instinct for talent, discovery of several women writers and others at the start of their careers (Kay Boyle, Janet Flanner, and Elizabeth Bishop, among others), and profound understanding of the marketplace and educated women's evolving roles distinguished the magazine for decades. Its "early successes," writes the author, "were due to the efforts of feminist women who interpreted the magazine's obsession with sophistication in a way guaranteed to appeal to readers like themselves--educated, active participants in the city's cultural life." White's personal life was equally fascinating and progressive, as revealed through Reading's nuanced, discerning portrait of the disintegration of her 14-year marriage to Ernest Angell (parent to esteemed New Yorker writer Roger Angell) and the ludicrous hurdles to divorce she confronted. Her subsequent marriage to E.B. White, one of her staff writers and seven years her junior, would endure for the next 48 years, and Reading's portrayal of E.B. is additionally compelling. An entertaining and expansive study of a pioneering literary editor and the era that shaped her legendary tenure.

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July 22, 2024
An oft-overlooked woman shaped the New Yorker’s literary style, according to this penetrating biography from Reading (The Mark Inside). Katharine White (1892–1977) joined the New Yorker soon after its founding in 1925 and helped craft the magazine’s tone—sophisticated, witty, not too erudite or obscure—as fiction editor. Much of the book analyzes White’s artful handling of writers including Mary McCarthy, Adrienne Rich, and John Updike, highlighting White’s one-on-one editing sessions, generous advances (based solely on the testimonial of Edmund White, she gave Vladimir Nabokov $500 for his first short story), and tact (even her rejection letters could run to several pages of praise). Among the writers she influenced was her second husband, E.B. White, who wrote Charlotte’s Web under her nurturing influence and credits her with editing his and William Strunk’s The Elements of Style. Reading convincingly portrays White as a feminist pioneer who built a career in which she embodied the urbane, ambitious women who read the New Yorker and populated its fiction. The prose is lucid and elegant, evoking the style White infused into the magazine (she loved to read “an intense moment distinctively told, a small, well-rounded exercise of a writer’s personality and wit”). The result is a fine portrait of one of the New Yorker’s leading lights that nails the magazine’s hothouse sensibility. Agent: Geri Thoma, Writers House.

Starred review from September 1, 2024
Readers enamored of the New Yorker and its history will recognize White as a legendary editor yet know little about her. Reading fills in the blanks, explaining precisely why, from the moment White arrived in 1925 to her retirement in 1961, she was essential to the magazine's identity and success. Reading recounts White's demanding life, from her mostly motherless New England girlhood as a "promiscuous reader" to her literary adventures at Bryn Mawr and her marriage to lawyer Ernest Angell, which brought two children and endless heartaches. She helped her second husband, writer E. B. White, contend with debilitating disorders so that he could create the works that made him famous as they had a son and lived in New York and Maine. White performed phenomenal amounts of exacting editorial work, cajoling and advising writers in discursive "personal-editorial letters," battling with fellow editors, and fine-tuning the magazine's mission, appeal, and significance, even while gravely ill. Reading's fine-tuned chronicling of White's work with writers such as Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary McCarthy, John Cheever, and Vladimir Nabokov illuminates the diligence, brilliance, and vision of this "magnificent editor," whose son, Roger Angell, also became a New Yorker fiction editor. With profound understanding of and appreciation for the full extent of White's achievements, Reading's in-depth, ardently and expertly written biography is a literary landmark.

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