New York Sketches

by E.B. White

E. B. White’s greatest stories, asides, essays, jokes, and tall tales about the city he arguably saw clearest, loved best, and skewered most mercilessly.Over more than fifty years at the New Yorker, E. B. White came to define a kind of ideal American 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 welcome diversion for every New Yorker—native, adoptive, 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.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, New York, Short Stories, Poetry, Travel

152 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2024

About the author

Elwyn Brooks White was a leading American essayist, author, humorist, poet and literary stylist and author of such beloved children's classics as Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. He graduated from Cornell University in 1921 and, five or six years later, joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine. He authored over seventeen books of prose and poetry and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1973.

White always said that he found writing difficult and bad for one's disposition.

Mr. White has won countless awards, including the 1971 National Medal for Literature and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, which commended him for making “a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.”

Reviews

[ម៉ូនីក · Rating 5 out of 5]

my god, a little book full of delight. i dogeared so many pages! i think i'm going to go & read everything e.b. white ever wrote now. :)

“The two moments when New York seems most desirable, when the splendor falls all round about and the city looks like a girl with leaves in her hair, are just as you are leaving and must say goodbye, and just as you return and can say hello. We had one such moment of infatuation not long ago on a warm, airless evening in town, before taking leave of these shores to try another city and another country for a while. There seemed to be a green tree overhanging our head as we sat in exhaustion. All day the fans had sung in offices, the air conditioners had blown their clammy breath into the rooms, and the brutal sounds of demolition had stung the ear—from buildings that were being knocked down by the destroyers who have no sense of the past. Above our tree, dimly visible in squares of light, the city rose in air. From an open window above us, a whiff of perfume or bath powder drifted down startlingly in the heavy night, somebody having taken a tub to escape the heat. On the tips of some of the branches, a few semiprecious stars settled themselves to rest. There was nothing about the occasion that distinguished it from many another city, another evening, nothing in particular that we can point to to corroborate our emotion. Yet we somehow tasted New York on our tongue in a great, overpowering draught, and felt that to sail away from so intoxicating a place would be unbearable, even for a brief spell.”

<3

[Julia Hans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled me with a feeling of being alive and the desire to chase all of the small moments in NY. Never been a poetry person but I loved all of the poems in here.

[Susanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of White’s early short essays, musings, and poems about New York in the 1930s and 1940s. Most made me smile and some made me laugh out loud. A welcome diversion. And I learned some things about New York — for example, about pigeons and their nesting habits. This short book was pure joy for me.

[Kara Kvasnicka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I confess that the wit and humor in some of the essays and poems in this slim volume may have been too subtle for me to catch. But, I always enjoy reading about New York City in either its past or present incarnations. And, having loved the novels for children he penned, I am glad to have been afforded the opportunity to familiarize myself with White’s journalistic endeavors as well.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very sweet and humorous

[Minister Jane Trivigno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great anthology of writings on the city, a lot of great standouts here.

[Camden Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a great little love letter to New York City - will definitely be revisiting some of these collected works as time goes by.

[Neal Tognazzini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up at The Strand at 12th & Broadway while we were in NYC a couple of weeks ago - thinking it would be a nice little NYC memento, and give me an opportunity to relive our trip after we got home. What a delightful book! White’s writing is incredible, and these little sketches (some more than others, of course) give wonderful texture to the city and reveal White’s own emotional connection to it. Poems, short stories, short remembrances, astute observations - this book contains a nicely organized variety and I very much enjoyed reading it.

[sofia bessette · Rating 5 out of 5]

just left nyc and this was beyond perfect:
"yet somehow we tasted New York on our tongue in a great, overpowering draught, and felt that to sail away from so intoxicating a place would be unbearable, even for a brief spell."

see you soon new york

[Veronica Ciastko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful !!!

[McKenna Munden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me near a month to finish this even though it was such a short book. It kind of lost me around 25% of the way in and felt more like rambling.

[Pierce Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really lovely! Occasionally insightful and always charming; Daisy’s obituary had me a little bit choked up.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

These selections of poetry and prose from E.B. White’s writings published in The New Yorker between the 1920s and the 1960s are, for the most part, a love song to New York City. They describe the City’s oddities, its people and places, and the author’s life and escapades in the big city with humor and alacrity.

They are a delight to read, with a few exceptions, and will bring joy, and put a smile on the face of even the most cynical readers.

The book rates 4.5 stars.

[Harry Smith]

Some objectionable takes but oh so sweet.

Here walked I under these great trees alone with my misery

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

a collection of tiny jewels and a love letter to new york city

[Kirsten Schulz]

“The moisture, the electricity, the fragrant loveliness of a Paris night, stir them strangely.” 🐌

[Zachary Littrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In E.B. White's obituary to his dog Daisy, he writes, with affection:

Her life was full of incident but not of accomplishment. Persons who knew her only slightly regarded her as an opinionated little bitch, and said so; but she had a small circle of friends who saw through her, cost what it did

I like this little whimsical, nostalgic book. And I like how White's humor is so darn dry that you hardly notice until it's too late.

Although there were certain Baptist tendencies on my mother's side, I was never subjected to the rigors of immersion. It came as a surprise, then, while lunching at Childs yesterday, to feel a great wetness come over me and hear a low emotional voice say: "In the name of John."

I glanced down to discover that I was buttermilk. Every bit of me was buttermilk

Over the past year, I've really grown fond of Mr. White's writing. It's got that dry, pithy, 20th century New Yorker energy, but with a disarmingly endearing self-deprecation and silliness that makes even his least exciting essays a little joy to read.

At any rate, Thoreau answers a surprisingly large number of the commonest questions that get thrown at me these days. He is a Johnny-on-the-spot for all ordinary occasions and situations.
I enter a room.
"Won't you sit down?" asks my hostess, indicating a vacancy.
"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself," I reply, accepting the velvet cushion with weary resignation.

And, as the title implies, he loved New York (though I often wondered if he'd love 21st century New York as much as his back in the mid-20th century). Music just starting to be played at Grand Central station, 99 cents will get you into the Rockefeller Plaza skating rink, and Sputnik just launched in the air. But maybe more than the city, he likes people. He likes the way they talk and relate to each other -- no one talks in punchlines or big aphorisms, but there's reams of pregnant pauses that White has the good sense to write down and leave hanging in the air.

No further attempt to tow a wren was made that day. Orville felt sick, and so did the wren. The incident, however, was the talk of the Square, and the other birds were still discussing it when night fell. When Orville's wife settled herself on the roosting branch beside her mate for the twittering vespers, she turned to him and said, "I believe you could have made it, Orville, if that darn bench hadn't been there."
"Sure we could have."
"Are you going to try again tomorrow?" There was a note of expectation in her voice.
"Yes."
The hen sparrow settled herself comfortably beside him. He, if any sparrow could, would prove the feasibility of towing a wren.

[Stefano Ujka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiny book made up of little “reports” of small moments in the city that make you appreciate it even more deeply. Some writings are really beautifully and romantically written and manage to capture the soul of NY, some others are less significant but still flowing. Overall a sweet treat for quiet moments, important to me as a recollection of my second trip to NYC.
Favourites of mine:
Child’s play - 103
The Hotel of the total stranger - 109
Notes & Comment: June 11, 1955 - 131

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir of E B White's time in New York, told through his essays.

There is much to love in this collection, published in 2024 under the direction of his granddaughter, Martha White. These essays were originally published individually in various magazines, including The New Yorker, Harpers, and Life, and later in 1981 by Harper & Row under the title "Poems & Sketches of E B White." First, its airy and as light and sweet as a good meringue. But it not pure whimsy.

For example, White's dog was killed in right there in front of him, probably at the end of a leash, and he wrote an essay about it. Yet, he does so in his own voice, never losing sight of what he wants his reader to know about his New York life and his view of New York.

He shows us through the accumulation of the scenes he sketches, the fullness of his time in New York. His reader begins to understand E B White better because of the peek. For example, when buttermilk is accidentally dumped on him in a restaurant, his reaction toward the waitress not only makes for a good story, but also tells us about E B White, the man. In an essay where he responds with answers to a poetess who wrote a series of romantic questions about pigeons, not only do his answers teach us a lot about pigeons, but we understand a more about E B White and how he feels about both nature and the poetess. All authors make choices, but what White chose to write about, what he chose to omit help his readers experience White's New York City.

Ostensibly the book is about The CIty. It certainly is, and a very nostalgic book for readers, like myself, who have lived in Manhattan and loved it. But "New York Sketches" is also a wonderful memoir about E B White. The Forward, written by his granddaughter, is helpful to read both before and again after reading the sketches. Its a very quick read but one I will keep on my shelf and re-read frequently.

Here's a quote that resonated with me.
"In New York, a citizen is likely to keep on the move, shopping for the perfect arrangement of rooms and vistas, changing his habitation according to fortune, whim, and need. And in every place he abandons he leaves something vital, it seems to me, and starts his new life somewhat less encrusted, like a lobster that has shed its skin and is for a time soft and vulnerable." --E B White, "Good-bye to Forty-eighth Street"

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

E.B. White’s short essays and stories have always proven delightful, his clear and easy use of language seeming effortless, his droll sense of humor perfectly fitting for a New Yorker. Someone gave me this book, certain I would enjoy revisiting a favorite writer and they were correct. These brief sketches, drawn primarily from his informal sketches for the New Yorker are easy to digest, with occasional laugh-out-loud sentences and others that caused me to stop and reread just for the pure pleasure of it.

In one brief 1948 essay, he touches on the dryness of martinis, irritable cab drivers, and the rising ubiquity of TVs, and makes an observation that is particularly relevant even today. “Like radio, television hangs on the questionable theory that whatever happens anywhere should be sensed everywhere. If everyone is going to be able to see everything, in the long run, all sights may lose whatever rarity value they once possessed, and it may well turn out that people, being able to see and hear practically everything, will be specially interested in almost nothing.”

And at a time I’m trying to sort through a lifetime of detritus, I liked this bit from his reflections on his wife and he packing up an apartment: “For some weeks now, I have been engaged in dispersing the contents of this apartment, trying to persuade hundreds of inanimate objects to scatter and leave me alone. It is not a simple matter. I am impressed by the reluctance of one’s worldly goods to go out again into the world. During September, I was hoping that some morning, as if by magic, all books, records, chairs, beds, curtains, lamps, china, glass, utensils, keepsakes would drain away from around my feet, like the outgoing tide, leaving me standing silent on a bare beach. But this did not happen.”

Perfect.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast an easy but uneven read. The blurbs which describe White as one of the most precise stylists in the English language set the bar too high. Only in the last two and longer essays can his writing prowess be seen, and I liked both these pieces a lot.

I can't say I was wowed by much of the rest of the book. There are a lot of short notes, but the only one I responded positively to was the one about Harry Purvis fairly early in the book. The poetry left me cold, I'm afraid, as did the several stories about White's dog.. Much of the book was more cute than fulfilling for me as a reader.

But for those of us raised in New York, a statement by White rings true: "This was the thing about New York, it was always bringing something out of your past (p. 111) and it did that for me. Pigeons, for sure, but also a lot of bygone restaurants like Schrafft's (I ate there often) and Child's (can't remember eating there but walked by a lot). Other things: no air conditioning (horrible!), fire escapes, meters in yellow cabs, cranking down store awnings, shoeshine parlors, and the noise of riveters (ok, jackhammers is what I remember).

And the piece de resistance: seeing naked people in their windows. This was a fascination for us in elementary school concerning a woman across the street, and for me, across the airshaft on 110th Street. Can't say I miss that aspect of New York, though.

So if New York was yours some decades ago, this book is fun. I'm not at all sure how it works for general readers.

[Bob Breen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this little gem from the Midtown McNally Jackson bookstore on our last week of a five-month stay in New York. Collected here are witty commentaries, short stories, poems, and essays, all originally published in The New Yorker, and each an ode to what I’m sure White would agree is the greatest city on earth.

The two moments when New York seems most desirable, when the splendor falls all round about and the city looks like a girl with leaves in her hair, are just as you are leaving and must say goodbye, and just as you return and can say hello.

I had to stop myself from gulping this down in one sitting. I read it slowly over a few evenings, savoring, reminiscing, and laughing aloud in places. I loved "The Rock Dove," a piece on the roosting habits of New York City pigeons, and "Goodbye to Forty-Eighth Street," an essay on the challenges of leaving a city he loved. But honestly, every piece in this collection is great.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

These "sketches," as E. B. White called them, are engaging, whimsical, wistful, and thoughtful very short (1 page), a bit longer (4 or more pages) or, in the case of poems, less than one page reflections. They are remembered observations he made on his walks around his long time home city, New York, from the time he arrived and began to work at The New Yorker, until 1938 when he moved to Maine.
Interestingly, none of the vignettes make mention of the Depression itself, which came four years into his tenure there, but the characters, run down saloons, and the overall atmosphere of hard times permeate the sketches.

Whether observing the nesting habits of pigeons, relating his woeful tale of spilled buttermilk, reminiscing about his favorite bar, or the death of his dog, we see where the fodder of a gifted writer is derived; by looking up, down, and all around at the simplicities and quirks of life in New York City.

[Andrew Lowery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up on a lark during my latest spree at McNally Jackson. I can barely remember reading Charlotte’s Web as a kid, but having read this I can definitely see why The New Yorker kept EB White around for like 50 years. His prose is simple yet profound and the subject material here hit very close to my heart. He perfectly captured the beauty of the banality of New York, and how much more interesting and inspiring those little things are compared to the glitzy haunts and celebrity that non-New Yorkers imagine to be all there is here. I particular enjoyed his stories about Daisy (both her quick trip at Schrafft’s and her obituary) and his poem Intimations at 58th Street about the cycle of the city going dormant and then springing to life with the seasons. A quick easy read and a beautiful tribute to all I love about my home—doesn’t get much better than that. 8/10

[Dena · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the US descends into fascism, E.B. White's "Sketches" offers reminders to pay attention to the delights around us. This little book made me laugh out loud many times. I don't know if you have to be (or have been) a New Yorker to appreciate it- I left in 1971 but New York never left me. What a timely gift this is from a writer who died in 1985. (Also see White's "On Democracy") The forward was written by his granddaughter, Martha White. If you are too busy to read, pick up this book & read a sketch at a time. I hope it will be as engaging & enjoyable for you as it is for me. And re-energized to keep working to save our democratic republic.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the majority of the sketches in this book. There were a few toward the end of the book that I didn’t quite get, or enjoy as much. Since I read the children’s book Some Writer! last year (a biography of EB White), I have wanted to read more of White’s work, outside of his children’s novels.


“While they endure we must note their locations, elevate our gaze above the level of our immediate concerns, imbibe the sweet air and perfect promise: the egg miraculous upon the ledge, the bird compact upon the egg, its generous warmth, its enviable patience, its natural fortitude and grace.“
[of pigeons, p 44]

[Eugene · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book cover with a sketch of a pigeon and page 39 with his observation of a pigeon in NYC quickly convinced me to buy this book. It was such a pleasantly quick and humorous read. E.B. White who has written Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little was not a let down on his quirky yet observant perspective on NYC. It had many fun short stories, essays, poems and little sketches which made me finish this book in one sitting. I would highly recommend this to anyone who will be going on a short domestic flight or a roadtrip.

[Raina · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason, I randomly picked up this book in the bookstore and after reading just a few sentences of the first page (after the Forward), I knew I had to read it.

E. B. White's writing encapsulates New York beautifully and truthfully. He describes this city and it's dwellers perfectly. Now, I'm sure I've noticed the things that he has penned about my hometown, but I had not realized them all in such a way before. 😂 haha.

This is a must read for any New Yorker!

[Marisel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delicious little morsels of NYC sweetness. Each perfect little story in New York Sketches is drawn (no pun intended!) out of an intimately deep love of home. I could have passed on the poems, though they do possess some odd sort of quirky charm. This is the kind of book you savor in chapter intervals and let sit in between, as one must between each delicate course. I was sad to finish it and couldn’t wait to restart it.

[Jen Thiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

E.B. White, one of the world’s greatest children’s authors, is also apparently one of the great observers of the beauty, struggles, joys, and unintentional and intentional comedy that exists for one living in New York City. This collection of short stories, poems, and obituaries are all different odes to New York City written in E.B.’s witty, observational, and joyful style - if his musings don’t make you at least appreciate NYC I don’t know what will!