He edited collections of the works of Walt Whitman, A. E. Housman, and Ernest Hemingway, and wrote over forty books and thousands of articles.
[5] In parallel with his academic career, he held a job as reporter, columnist and editor of more than a dozen daily and weekly newspapers in Chattanooga, Los Angeles and Detroit,[5] covering a wide range of topics including sports and auto racing for the Detroit area newspapers.
[7] In addition to writing thousands of academic articles on many American and British authors, including John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Wilfred Owen, A. E. Houseman and W. D. Snodgrass,[6] White published over forty books, including By-Line: Ernest Hemingway (1967), which was translated into fourteen languages and made the New York Times best-seller list.
[10] After retiring in 1981, he taught in Israel and in Florida, lived briefly in California, and settled for a while near the University of Virginia, returning to Michigan when his health deteriorated.
[12][13] He won a Fulbright of American Literature to Korea in 1963-1964, several National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1984.