literary editor and the era that shaped her legendary tenure....Reading finally shines a well-deserved spotlight on White's remarkable career." -
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"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." -
Booklist (starred review)"Penetrating...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...The result is a fine portrait of one of the
New Yorker's leading lights that nails the magazine's hothouse sensibility." -
Publishers Weekly"Some people like to curl up with a cozy mystery, while for others, the ultimate cozy involves midcentury literary Manhattan. Amy Reading-whose bona fides include service on the executive board of cooperative indie bookstore Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, N.Y.-profiles
New Yorker editor
Katharine S. White, who came on board at the magazine in 1925 and spent 36 years editing the likes of
Elizabeth Bishop,
Janet Flanner, and
Mary McCarthy. Put the kettle on-or better yet, pour a classic gin martini-in preparation for this one, which underscores the many women authors White championed." -
The Millions"Amy Reading has recreated a lost, gilded literary world in her smart and evocative biography of Katharine White, the longtime editor at
The New Yorker who helped shape postwar American literature. One finishes this book with enormous gratitude for Katharine White's quiet but fierce commitment to reading, writing, and women, and for Amy Reading's determination to recognize White's achievement. Gratitude, too, for all the drama, humor, and literary gossip that make
The World She Edited the next best thing to cocktails at the Algonquin.
" -
Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath"The World She Edited, Amy Reading's stunning new biography of the
New Yorker's least lauded but arguably most consequential editor, Katharine S. White, is both revealing and revelatory....With delicacy and insight, Reading opens a closely guarded personal life to empathic scrutiny, while proving definitively that White's was nothing short of a brilliant career." -
Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast"Reading harnesses years of deep research, granular attention, and a refreshingly critical eye to examine the life of Katharine S. White, renowned editor of
The New Yorker. In detailing White's immense talent, fastidiousness, rigor, and, perhaps most groundbreakingly and movingly of all, her deep relational acuity, Reading reveals White's tremendous savvy-and, equally, her sacrifice-in choosing to exercise her power from the wings rather than center stage. Reading reminds us to pull back the curtain and look carefully at who, and what, is behind the stories that shape us all. A thorough, nuanced, and deeply human excavation of an extraordinary life." -
Sara B. Franklin, author of The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America"Harold Ross, James Thurber, and E. B. White usually get all the credit for the creation and shaping of
The New Yorker magazine. Amy Reading's book, carefully researched and lucidly written, makes a powerful case that Katharine White was every bit as important. They gave the magazine a tone and a style. She gave it a brain." -
Chip McGrath, former deputy editor of The New Yorker "An important, overdue corrective to the persistently male-dominated histories of American literature as it developed over the twentieth century and, particularly, of the magazine that most fostered its growth:
The New Yorker. You will be astonished to learn of the extensive networks of women supporting each other and playing important roles in the literary world from the 1920s-1950s. Impeccably researched and beautifully written,
The World She Edited is an enlightening, enthralling read, revealing White's powerful influence and development of generations of writers, many of them women who are very little known today-but deserve to be, as does White herself." -
Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters"This beautifully written book elegantly demonstrates the vital role hidden figures play in shaping cultural taste.
New Yorker editor Katharine White encouraged a world of writers - women writers especially - to produce their finest work. This sensitive, compelling book does White justice, revealing the remarkable labor of pulling something better from those who believe they've already done their best. American literature as we know it
owes Katharine White."
-
Carla Kaplan, author of Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters and Miss Anne in Harlem
