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This is the first book-length critical study of E.B. White, the American essayist and author of Stuart Little, Charlotte´s Web, The Trumpet of the Swan . G. Douglas Atkins focuses on White and the writing life, offering detailed readings of the major essays and revealing White´s distinctiveness as an essayist.

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Coming into White Country E.B. White and the Writing Life: Affirming Life´s Newness and Joy Of Nature, Maine, and Meaning: Or, "the Pageantry of Peas" and the Poetics of Adversity Strange Bedfellows and Deconstruction of Oppositions: The "Recording Secretary" Speaks His Mind on Politics Looking for E.B. White Reading "Once More to the Lake"

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´Atkins makes a case not only for the clarity and congeniality of E. B. White´s writing, but for what is often overlooked, his complexity. White was not just an old curmudgeon messing about with rats and pigs and spiders on his Maine farm; he was a significant thinker who reflected many key perspectives of the twentieth century: the fear of nuclear war, the need for urbanites to simplify their lives and get back in touch with gardening, the hazards of racism, New York City and its complications, illness, politics, and death. Atkins develops all of these themes and more in his analysis of White. But more than the subject matter, Atkins also opens discussions of White´s style: his strengths, and even some of his weaknesses as a writer.´ Dr. Steven Faulkner, Longwood University

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G. Douglas Atkins is a professor of English at the University of Kansas.

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