Mencken on Mencken: A New Collection of Autobiographical Writings
Perhaps America's foremost literary stylist and most mordant wit, Mencken's most engaging writing told about his own life and experiences. In Mencken on Mencken, veteran Mencken editor and scholar S. T. Joshi has assembled a hefty collection of the best of Mencken's autobiographical pieces that have not appeared previously in book form. These forty-four selections cover a wide variety of topics ranging from incidents from Mencken's everyday life to reflections on friends and colleagues to his...
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"Mencken weighs 172 pounds, is 5 feet 10 inches in height and not beautiful. His chief amusement, after reading, is piano-playing, this he does very crudely. He takes no exercise except walking and is a moderate eater and drinker. He sometimes drinks as little as one bottle of beer a week, though this doesn't happen very often." So wrote H. L. Mencken about himself, in a brief sketch of his life penned in 1905. Perhaps America's foremost literary stylist and most mordant wit, Mencken's most engaging writing told about his own life and experiences. In Mencken on Mencken, veteran Mencken editor and scholar S. T. Joshi has assembled a hefty collection of the best of Mencken's autobiographical pieces that have not appeared previously in book form. These forty-four selections cover a wide variety of topics ranging from incidents from Mencken's everyday life to reflections on friends and colleagues to his careers as author, journalist, and editor, to his travels abroad. As a journalist in Baltimore, Mencken encountered many unusual characters: a professional mourner hired by a beer distiller, a wagon driver who slept through the great Baltimore fire of 1904, a confirmed bachelor who left town to avoid the clutches of a predatory widow. He provides accounts of literary figures he knew, such as Theodore Dreiser, and ruminations on his work at the Baltimore Sun and as editor for the magazines Smart Set and the American Mercury. In an essay titled "What I Believe," he eschews humor and writes straightforwardly of his longtime scorn for the idea of religion, and in his journalist mode he reflects on a half-century of attending political conventions, drawing on his vast inside knowledge to savage the corruption and incompetence of the political class. A superb travel writer, Mencken gives us a rollicking account of beer-drinking in Munich, astute observations of political unrest in Cuba, and carefully drawn scenes from a long tour he and his wife made of the Mediterranean in 1934. Joshi has thoroughly annotated the pieces and also compiled an extensive glossary of names and terms that Mencken mentions. Mencken on Mencken offers a fully rounded self-portrait of one of America's most colorful personalities and most extraordinary men of letters.The Washington Post - Jonathan YardleyThe reminiscences about youth and journalism are wonderful, the rest somewhat less so. But it's all Mencken, and if you're even half as addicted to him as I am, you'll be thrilled to have yet more of him to read.
Introduction 1A note on this edition 13Prologue Henry Louis Mencken (1905) 15Memories of a Long LifeEarly Days 17Old Days 18Surdi Audiunt 21The Passing of "The Hill" 27West Baltimore 32Mr. Kipling 35Man of Means 37Tale of a Traveller 38An Evening on the House 45Baltimoriana 52Obsequies in the Grand Manner 55Love Story 62The Life of an Artist 70James Huneker 76The Life of Tone 85Author and JournalistA Footnote on Journalism 92Reminiscences of the Herald 96On Breaking into Type 99Walter Abell and the Sun 103Twenty-five Years of the Evening Sun 106A Word about the Smart Set 109Foreword to A Bibliography of the Writings of H. L. Mencken 116Five Years of the American Mercury 117Ten Years of the American Mercury 123Memoirs of an Editor 126The Worst Trade of Them All 131Why I Am Not a Book Collector 135ThinkerOff the Grand Banks 139Meditations at Vespers 142What Is This Talk about Utopia? 145What I Believe 148On the Meaning of Life 158"Generally Political" 160World TravelerAt the Edge of the Spanish Main 168The Beeriad 172At Large in London 184Reminiscences of 1917 197The Black Country 200West Indian Notes 203Our Footloose Correspondents 206Foreign Parts 208The Adriatic: East Side 224EpilogueHenry Louis Mencken (1936) 229Notes 231Glossary of Names 239Bibliography of Originals Appearances 255Index 257
\ Jonathan YardleyThe reminiscences about youth and journalism are wonderful, the rest somewhat less so. But it's all Mencken, and if you're even half as addicted to him as I am, you'll be thrilled to have yet more of him to read.\ —The Washington Post\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalMencken (1880–1956), one of America's most recognized and iconoclastic journalists, estimated that he wrote between ten and 15 million words in his lifetime, and he compiled selected pieces into three autobiographical books: Happy Days, Heathen Days, and Newspaper Days. Joshi (ed., H.L. Mencken on Religion), a Mencken bibliographer and scholar, has collected an additional 44 pieces that he hopes will be considered the fourth book in the "Days" series. Selections cover a 50-year time period and are arranged chronologically by the events they discuss within the categories of personal memories, Mencken's writing life, philosophical musings, and travel narratives. Mencken's lively prose might entertain as he relates a love story with an unexpected ending or provoke as he expresses strong opinions about religion, human nature, or politics. His colorful use of language and interesting turns of phrase will engage even the novice Mencken reader. Joshi includes useful contextualizing notes and biographical information. VERDICT Mencken aficionados and scholars will be pleased to have another volume of his collected works. Libraries with Mencken collections will wish to purchase this.—Judy Solberg, Seattle Univ. Lib.\ \
