The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker

A lively & intimate biography of trailblazing and era-defining New Yorker editor Katharine S. White, who helped build the magazine's prestigious legacy & transform the 20th century literary landscape for women.

In the summer of 1925, Katharine Sergeant Angell White walked into The New Yorker's midtown office & left with a job as an editor. The magazine was only a few months old. Over the next thirty-six years, White would transform the publication into a literary powerhouse.

This exquisite biography brings to life the remarkable relationships White fostered with her writers & how these relationships nurtured an astonishing array of literary talent. She edited a young John Updike, to whom she sent seventeen rejections before a single acceptance, as well as Vladimir Nabokov, with whom she fought incessantly, urging that he drop needlessly obscure, confusing words.

White's biggest contribution, however, was her cultivation of women writers whose careers were made at The New Yorker—Janet Flanner, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Stafford, Nadine Gordimer, Elizabeth Taylor, Emily Hahn, Kay Boyle, & more. She cleared their mental & financial obstacles, introduced them to each other, & helped them create now classic stories & essays. She propelled these women to great literary heights and, in the process, reinvented the role of the editor, transforming the relationship to be not just a way to improve a writer’s work but also their life.

Based on years of scrupulous research, acclaimed author Amy Reading creates a rare & deeply intimate portrait of a prolific editor—through both her incredible tenure at The New Yorker, & her famous marriage to E.B. White—and reveals how she transformed our understanding of literary culture & community.

°°°

Amy Reading is the author of The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, & a Small History of the Big Con.