E. B. White by George H. Rothacker - acrylic on canvas - 24" x 24" - Original painting $2400, prints @$90 each plus tax and shipping (Prints are an edition of 50, signed, titled and numbered with an image area of 13"x 13").Elwyn Brooks White (E.B. White) was an American writer. He was the author of highly popular books for children: Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). Although I had known of his books as a child, I never was formally introduced to their writer, who besides his fame as a beloved storyteller, was also a greatly valued essayist and columnist for The New Yorker magazine and Harper’s Magazine.
In 1959, White edited and updated The Elements of Style, a handbook of grammatical and stylistic guidance for writers. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for his letters, essays and “the full body of his work.”
Other than the titles of his children’ books, I knew nothing about the man when I began to write the semi-autobiographical novel, Comedy of Errors, about a boy name Stewart who was born in 1947 and had the surname of “Little.” His parents knew nothing of the book about the mouse-like child, Stuart Little, who was named Stewart due to his parents’ admiration for the actor Jimmy Stewart.
After entering school at age six, most of the children and teachers knew of White’s books, and, as children will often do, Stewart was derogatively nicknamed “mouse,” a name of which he was forced to endure through the upper grades.
To prepare for the writing of my novel, I purchased White’s strange story of the adventurous Stuart, a mouse-child, but also purchased a book of the writer’s essays, of which I was very greatly impressed, and which most likely influenced the writing of my book about Stewart Little and his path to becoming a graphic novelist.
Recently, the character of E. B. White showed up in the film Blue Moon, a introspective portrait of Lorenz Hart. Hart was a complicated, but brilliant, lyricist who wrote the words accompanying many of Richard Rodgers melodies, an accomplishment that earned him, along with Ira Gershwin, a top-tier legacy of standards in the American songbook that include, “My Funny Valentine”, “Where or When”, “Dancing on the Ceiling” and “You Are Too Beautiful.”
Having completed my novel, Comedy of Errors, (Shakespeare penned his play long before I wrote my book), I decided to paint Mr. White accompanied by an image of Stuart Little, based on the original illustration of the the mouse-child paddling a canoe originally created by Garth Williams for the cover of White’s original edition..
E.B. White passed away in 1985 at the age of 86.
My version of Comedy of Errors is available free, to read online or listen to in a podcast, by clicking the link below:
The soft-cover book and online access is also available online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.