New York Sketches

Over more than fifty years at the New Yorker, E. B. White came to define a kind of ideal American prose: clear, casual, democratic, and urbane. He also did more than any writer to define his favorite city. His classic Here Is New York captured a moment in the life of Manhattan with precision and love—but his was no fleeting infatuation. In New York Sketches, the first collection of his casual pieces about the city, White ranges at whim from the nesting habits of pigeons to the aisles of a calculator trade-show on Eighth Avenue, from the behavior of snails in aquariums to the ghosts of old romance that haunt a flower shop or a fire escape or an old hotel. These sketches, some less than a page long, many written for a laugh, or in response to the news of the day, show us White at his most playful and inventive. 

New York Sketches is a diversion for every New Yorker—native, adoptive, aspiring, or far from home—and a perfect introduction, not only to what White called “the inscrutable and lovely town,” but to the everyday enchantments of one of her fondest reporters.

“The variety of subject matter to be found in these graceful pages is enormous. But no matter what his subject, Mr. White always writes about it in a prose that is a joy to read.” 

—The New York Times

“This frisky collection from Charlotte’s Web author White (1899–1985) compiles brief dispatches . . . chronicling the vagaries of New York City life . . . The selections are rife with the author’s dry wit . . . His crystalline prose also captures the city’s beauty . . . This pulses with the irrepressible heartbeat of New York City.”

—Publishers Weekly

“His voice rumbles with authority through sentences of surpassing grace. In his more than fifty years at The New Yorker, White set a standard of writerly craft for that supremely well-wrought magazine. In genial, perfectly poised essay after essay, he has wielded the English language with as much clarity and control as any American of his time.” 

—Raymond Sokolov, Newsweek

“E.B. White is a well-known and beloved children's author, but compiled here are the short essays and poems he wrote on all-things New York. Each literary sketch left me wondering in silence about a New York now lost and instilled in me a sense of envy toward this master observer. His writing packs a surprising bite carried along by steady and often lyrical prose.”

—Clarisse Jorah, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)

“Some of the finest examples of contemporary, genuinely American prose. White’s style incorporates eloquence without affectation, profundity without pomposity, and wit without frivolity or hostility. Like his predecessors Thoreau and Twain, White’s creative, humane, and graceful perceptions are an education for the sensibilities.”

—The Washington Post

“I know E.B. White from his children’s books but never words written for adults. This book is a love song to NYC told in anecdotes, essays, jokes, musings, stories and prose.”

—Jesica Sweedler DeHart, Neill Public Library (Pullman, WA)

Elwyn Brooks White (1899–1985) was born in Mount Vernon, New York, the youngest of six children. He is best known today for his classic children’s books Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little; he was also among the best and funniest American prose stylists of the twentieth century.

Martha White, granddaughter of E. B. White, is a writer and editor. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, and many other publications.

New York Sketches • Paperback ISBN: 9781946022738

Dec 3, 2024 • McNALLY EDITIONS no. 35

5" x 8.5" • 152 pages • $18.00

eBook ISBN: 9781946022745