The World She Edited

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

"Meticulously researched." —The New York Times

"A first-rate biography." —Washington Post

A lively and intimate biography of an influential woman, the trailblazing and era-defining New Yorker editor Katharine S. White, who helped build the magazine’s prestigious legacy and 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 and 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 reveals the art of editing by bringing to life the remarkable relationships White fostered with her writers and 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 to 20th-century literature, 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, and more. She cleared their mental and financial obstacles, introduced them to each other, and helped them create now classic stories and 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 and deeply intimate portrait of a prolific editor—through both her incredible tenure at The New Yorker, and her famous marriage to E.B. White and pivotal work with founder Harold Ross—and reveals how she transformed our understanding of literary culture and community.

“The next best thing to cocktails at the Algonquin.” — Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

This definitive biography of Katharine S. White unveils the woman behind the literary powerhouse:
The Woman Who Built The New Yorker: Go inside the midtown office to see how Katharine S. White spent thirty-six years transforming a fledgling humor magazine into a literary institution.Literary Matchmaking: Uncover the story of her famous marriage to E.B. White and her often-contentious, career-defining editorial relationships with writers like Vladimir Nabokov and a young John Updike.Champion of Women Writers: Learn how she cultivated the careers of now-iconic women writers—including Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Bishop, and Janet Flanner—clearing their obstacles and helping them create classic stories.A Definitive Biography: Based on years of meticulous research, this book paints a rare and deeply intimate portrait of one of the 20th century's most vital, and previously unsung, literary figures.