1. Home Page: Mencken Society Promotes the reading of the works of Henry Louis Mencken (18801956), the Sage of Baltimore, American author, critic, newspaper man and iconoclast. led him to correspond with H. L. Mencken. The http://www.mencken.org/

The Mencken Society Home Pa g e Honoring the memory of and promoting the reading of the living works of Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12—1956-01-29), the “Sage of Baltimore”, American author, critic, newspaper man and iconoclast. “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.” —“Epitaph”, Smart Set , 1921-12-03, p. 33 Welcome Newcomer! Resources Mencken Quotes Mencken Sampler ... Memento Mori Alistair Cooke (1908-2004) Alistair Cooke, best knows to Menckenians as the compiler of The Vintage Mencken and to the rest of America as the host of Masterpiece Theatre , died at midnight on 2004-03-30. Readers interested in Mr Cooke’s biography may turn to the many competent and interesting obituaries which followed his death. Here we will focus on Mr Cooke’s connection with H. L. Mencken. Alistair Cooke made his first visit to the United States in 1932, on a two-year fellowship. He spent the 1932-33 academic year at the Yale University School of Drama and attended Harvard the following year. There, a course in the history of the English language in America led him to correspond with H. L. Mencken. The two men developed a friendship. Mr Cooke attributed exposure to Mencken as leading him to decide on newspaper work. Mr Mencken quoted Mr Cooke’s observation on “the infiltration of English by Americanisms” in

2. H.L. Mencken - UMKC School Of Law Biography of H. Mencken in context of Scopes Trial Famous Trials project H.L.Mencken (1880-1956) At the time of the Scopes trial, H. L. Mencken was America's leading Mencken came to Dayton http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/menckenh.htm

H.L. M encken (1880-1956) by Doug Linder (2004) Surveying American religious life, Mencken found it to be a nearly endless source of material for his iconoclastic pen. Like Darrow, Mencken could not tolerate intolerance. He believed deeply that individuals should be left to pursue happiness as they saw fit, with as little interference as possible from government or anyone else. Fundamentalists, in the view of Mencken, belonged to the great masses of Americans who neither appreciated, nor contributed to, the best of American culture. They, like most people, were ignorant, ignoble, and cowardly. Moreover, fundamentalists lacked the intelligence to understand their own follies and superstitions. Homo boobiens On that point, he had no dispute with most other intellectuals of his time. Mencken differed from other critics of fundamentalism, however, in his insistence that science and Christianity in general could not be reconciled. For Mencken, the Scopes trial was the journalistic opportunity of a lifetime. In a letter from Dayton , the iconoclastic editor of American Mercury and columnist for the Baltimore Sun told a friend that he found the chaotic scene in Dayton almost too good to be true.

3. Creative Quotations From H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) H. L. Mencken in quotations to inspire creative thinking Creative Quotations from . . . H. L. Mencken. ( 18801956) born on Sep 3 Search millions of documents for H. L. Mencken. Creative Hats http://www.creativequotations.com/one/168.htm

CQHome Search CQ CQ Indexes CQ E-books ... creative Creative Quotations from . . . H. L. Mencken 1880-1956) born on Sep 3 US editor, satirist. He is known for his biting satire, insults, and debunking in "The American Mercury," 1924-33. Search millions of documents for H. L. Mencken Creative Hats Tshirts African Cichlids There are two kinds of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read. The more a man dreams, the less he believes. A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Fame is an embalmer trembling with stage fright. Published Sources for Quotations Above: F: In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994. R: In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994. A: Minority Report, "Notebooks." N: Attributed. K: In "Correct Quotes for DOS," WordStar International, 1991. Aquarium Fish Mortgage Info India Outsourcing Check out these Ebay items for H. L. Mencken! be more creative.com

4. PAL: H. L.Mencken (1880-1956) PAL Perspectives in American Literature A Research and Reference Guide. An Ongoing Online Project © Paul P. Reuben. Chapter 7 Early Twentieth Century - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken (1880-1956) Outside http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/mencken.html

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide Paul P. Reuben Chapter 7: Early Twentieth Century - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken (1880-1956) The H. L. Mencken Page The Mencken Society Home Page H. L. Mencken Collection Primary Works ... Home Page "The capital defect in the culture of These States is the lack of a civilized aristocracy, secure in its position, animated by an intelligent curiosity, skeptical of all facile generalizations, superior to the sentimentality of the mob, and delighting in the battle of ideas for its own sake." - from "American Culture," Yale Review , June 1920, 804-17 Considered an iconoclast and a muckraker, Mencken was for ten years the editor of The American Mercury . This magazine ridiculed the contemporary mores and manners of the American scene. The chief targets included the stupidity of the "booboisie," Puritanism, prohibition, highbrow pretentiousness, and organized religion. Although his writing appears dated, Mencken stripped the remain vestiges of Victorianism and freed the American writer to explore diverse topics. Top Primary Works George Bernard Shaw: His Plays

5. American History 102 Image Gallery: Mencken, H.L. Notes Signed "Breakfast in a Free State! H.L. Mencken" Modifications The image is approximately 1/4 Subject Intellectuals. H.L. Mencken (18801956), journalist, editor, and critic http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/photos/html/1047.html

American History 102 Photo Gallery Previous Index Next SHSW Location: Name File: "Mencken" Notes: Signed: "Breakfast in a Free State! H.L. Mencken" Modifications: The image is approximately 1/4 size original. Drop shadow border added; colors reduced to sixteen grays. For more information or to obtain rights for this image, contact the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Visual Materials Archive at (608) 264-6470. Name: Mencken, H.L. Subject: Intellectuals H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), journalist, editor, and critic Home Course Guide Bios ... Comments/Sign-in

6. A Bum's Christmas By H. L. Mencken HL Mencken (18801956), the legendary Baltimore newspaperman, wrote the followingstory, originally entitled Stare Decisis, for the New Yorker. http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken/bumsxmas.html

A Bum's Christmas By H.L. MENCKEN Printed in The Wall Street Journal Editorial page - December 24, 1998 H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), the legendary Baltimore newspaperman, wrote the following story, originally entitled "Stare Decisis," for the New Yorker. It was published as a book in 1948. To mark the book's 50th anniversary, we present Journal readers with a slightly abbreviated version of Mencken's classic tale. Despite all the snorting against them in works of divinity, it has always been my experience that infidelsor freethinkers, as they usually prefer to call themselvesare a generally estimable class of men, with strong overtones of the benevolent and even of the sentimental. This was certainly true, for example, of Leopold Bortsch, Totsaufer [customers' man] for the Scharnhorst Brewery, in Baltimore, forty-five years ago. . . . He was a sincere friend to the orphans, the aged, all blind and one-legged men, ruined girls, opium fiends, Chinamen, oyster dredgers, ex-convicts, the more respectable sort of colored people, and all the other oppressed and unfortunate classes of the time, and he slipped them, first and last, many a substantial piece of money. Nor was he the only Baltimore infidel of those days who thus shamed the churchly. Indeed, the name of one of his buddies, Fred Ammermeyer, jumps into my memory at once. Fred and Leopold, I gathered, had serious dogmatic differences, for there are as many variations in doctrine between infidels as between Christians, but the essential benignity of both men kept them on amicable terms, and they often cooperated in good works. The only noticeable difference between them was that Fred usually tried to sneak a little propaganda into his operationsa dodge that the more scrupulous Leopold was careful to avoid. . . . [H]e sent each and every one of the clergy of the town a copy of Paine's "Age of Reason" three or four times a yearalways disguised as a special delivery or registered letter marked "Urgent". . . .

7. Recommended Reading Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis), 18801956. HL Mencken on Music A Selection of His Writingson Music Together With an Account of HL Mencken rsquo;s Musical Life . http://www.mencken.org/files/text/recommended_reading.htm

Recommended Reading Quotes Biographies Works by HLM Criticism ... Related Where do I start? A recent query of the Enoch Pratt Library’s catalog with the search word “Mencken” got 262 hits, showing that the Menckenophile can spend a good portion of his life reading works by and about the Sage. The list presented here is greatly reduced in scale. The emphasis is on books in print, with a few out-of-print titles included because of their merit. The out-of-print works should be available in any library worthy of the name. A good start would be The Vintage Mencken , compiled by Alistair Cooke. The book’s forty-nine selections give a wide sampling of Mencken’s work, ranging from excerpts from the nostalgic Days books to examples of Mencken’s literary criticism, political essays, reporting, commentary and more. It includes the essays one would count as the “Best of Mencken”. The reader who finds The Vintage Mencken agreeable is ready to move on to the Chrestomathy , HLM’s own selection from his writings of "material that continues to be of more or less current interest". This work contains 240 selections and includes several pieces, such as "A Neglected Anniversary" (‘The bathtub Hoaxrsquo;), for which Mencken is famous. Mencken’s writings still retain the power to offend modern sensibilities. The thick skinned may want to move on to

8. German American Corner: MENCKEN, Henry Louis (1880-1956) Mencken, Henry Louis (18801956), American journalist, critic, and essayist, whoseperceptive and HL Mencken, Prejudices It is the dull man who is always sure http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/mencken.html

Visit the German Corner Home Page Privacy Statement German Corner Website German-American Mall ... Next Page MENCKEN, Henry Louis (1880-1956) Quotations: Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. H.L. MENCKEN, Prejudices It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. H.L. MENCKEN, Prejudices Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking. H.L. MENCKEN, A Little Book in C Major Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H.L. MENCKEN, A Little Book in C Major Alimony_The ransom that the happy pay to the devil. H.L. MENCKEN, A Mencken Chrestomathy It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. H.L. MENCKEN, A Mencken Chresto- mathy A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know. H.L. MENCKEN, A Mencken Chrestomathy

9. H.L. Mencken Quotes Quotes From H. L. Mencken. Henry Louis Mencken (18801956) No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. Freedom of press is limited to those who own one. Those who can http://www.bmacleod.com/mencken.html

Quotes From H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. Freedom of press is limited to those who own one. Those who can do. Those who can't teach. Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable. Nature abhors a moron. Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution. Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice. It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.

10. Henry Louis Mencken, 1880-1956 Prejudices: First Series. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. Henry Louis Mencken,18801956 Prejudices First Series. New York Alfred A. Knopf, c1919. http://docsouth.unc.edu/mencken/menu.html

Henry Louis Mencken, 1880-1956 Prejudices: First Series. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, c1919. Full Text (254 p., ca. 400K) HTML file XML/TEI source file Illustrations Title Page Learn More About Henry Louis Mencken Subjects American essays 20th century. American literature History and criticism. Funding from a Chancellor's Grant for Instructional Technology supported the electronic publication of this title. Return to "Library of Southern Literature" Home Page Return to Documenting the American South Home Page Feedback URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/mencken/menu.html Last update April 27, 2004

11. Henry Louis Mencken, 1880-1956 Mencken, Henry Louis, 18801956. Carl Bode, Mencken (1969); Fred Hobson, Serpentin Eden HL Mencken and the South (1974); William H. Nolte, HL Mencken http://docsouth.unc.edu/mencken/bio.html

Source: From Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture , Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Used by permission of the publisher. Henry Louis Mencken, 1880-1956 Mencken, Henry Louis, 1880-1956. Editor, essayist, and critic. Henry Louis Mencken was a writer of enormous national influence who also played a leading role in southern intellectual life of the 1920s. A native of Baltimore, he became a contributor to the Smart Set and the American Mercury Evening Mail and was reprinted in his book, Prejudices, Second Series (1920). In his essay he charged that the South was "almost as sterile, artistically, intellectually, culturally, as the Sahara Desert." "In all that gargantuan paradise of the fourth-rate," he contended, "there is not a single picture gallery worth going into, or a single orchestra capable of playing the nine symphonies of Beethoven, or a single opera-house, or a single theater devoted to decent plays." Most southern poetry and prose was drivel, he charged, and "when you come to critics, musical composers, painters, sculptors, architects and the like, you will have to give it up, for there is not even a bad one between the Potomac mud-flats and the Gulf." Nor, Mencken added, a historian, sociologist, philosopher, theologian, or scientist. The essay, written in characteristic Menckenian hyperbole, suggested that the condition of the modern South was especially lamentable because the antebellum South, particularly Virginia, had been the seat of American civilization. Mencken attributed the decline of southern culture to the "poor whites" who, he charged, had seized control of the South after the Civil War. Particularly to blame were the preachers and the politicians. What the South needed, he maintained, was a return to influence of a remnant of the old aristocracy.

12. Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956. The Defeat Of Alphonso: Guide. fMS Am 1263 Mencken, HL (Henry Louis), 18801956. The defeat of AlphonsoGuide. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. Harvard http://oasis.harvard.edu/html/hou01169.html

fMS Am 1263 Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956. The defeat of Alphonso: Guide. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 Descriptive Summary Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University Location: f Call No.: MS Am 1263 Creator: Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956. Title: The defeat of Alphonso, Date(s): Quantity: 1 v. (.05 linear ft.) Abstract: Typescript of the short story The defeat of Alphonso together with related letters. Administrative Information Acquisition Information: Gift of L. Richard Bamberger, 65 Broadway, New York, New York; received: 1952 25 Apr. Historical Note H. L. Mencken was a controversial American journalist in Baltimore, author, editor and influential social critic during the first half of the twentieth century. Scope and Content The original typescript and inscribed printers' copy of "The defeat of Alphonso," submitted to Youth's Companion magazine, together with the publisher's file, printed copies of the magazine containing the story, and related letters. Container List (1) Mencken, Henry Louis, 1880-

13. Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956. The Defeat Of Alphonso: Guide. No Frames Version. http://oasis.harvard.edu/html/hou01169frames.html

No Frames Version No Frames Version

14. UofL - H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) Collection HL Mencken (18801956) collection. Collection HL Mencken (1880-1956)collection Date/Extent 1903-1968, ca. 1,200 items http://special.library.louisville.edu/display-collection.asp?ID=450

15. Reader's Companion To American History - -MENCKEN, H. L. The Reader s Companion to American History. Mencken, HL. (18801956),journalist, editor, author, and philologist. Mencken was born http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_059000_menckenhl.htm

Entries Publication Data Advisory Board Contributors ... World Civilizations The Reader's Companion to American History MENCKEN, H. L. , journalist, editor, author, and philologist. Mencken was born, lived, and died in Baltimore, and for all but about eight of his seventy-five years resided in one of the city's typical brick-front row houses. From this unlikely spot he radiated an enormous, indeed unique, influence on the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. In 1926 Walter Lippmann called him "the most powerful personal influence on this whole generation of educated people"; the New York Times claimed that he was the most powerful private citizen in America. His caustic wit and bludgeon-like style could evoke worshipful admiration or total loathing; it was impossible to be indifferent to him. His career as journalist began in 1899 when he went to work as a reporter for the Baltimore Morning Herald; by the time the paper folded in 1906 he was its managing editor. Thereupon he transferred to the Sun

16. Heath Anthology Of American Literature 4/e H.L. Mencken - Author Page Textbook Site for The Heath Anthology of American Literature, FourthEdition Paul Lauter, General Editor. HL Mencken (18801956) http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/modern/men

Site Orientation Heath Orientation Timeline Access Author Profile Pages by: Fourth Edition Table of Contents Concise Edition Table of Contents Authors by Name Authors by Year ... Internet Research Guide Textbook Site for: The Heath Anthology of American Literature , Fourth Edition Paul Lauter, General Editor H.L. Mencken Called by journalist Walter Lippman in the 1920s “the most powerful personal influence on this whole generation of educated people,” H. L. Mencken reigned as national literary arbiter during that decade as well as the most famous social and cultural commentator of his day. From the early days of the twentieth century he led the attack on the genteel tradition in American letters—the Anglo-American tradition that was associated in most readers’ eyes with Henry James, William Dean Howells, and “polite letters.” Mencken championed early literary naturalists and realists, particularly Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis; and in the pages of the Smart Set and the American Mercury, highly influential magazines that he edited for two decades, he attacked provincialism, puritanism, and censorship. A bitter critic of the American alliance with Great Britain in World War I—and, in fact, a critic of all things British—he fought for an expansion of the literary franchise to Americans of non-British descent. He had in mind German Americans (such as Dreiser) and eastern Europeans, but—as editor of American Mercury —he also published more African American writers than any other editor of his time.

17. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN (1880-1956) Translate this page Bernard Genton. HENRY LOUIS Mencken (1880-1956). 1. Bibliographie générale.SHRADER, Richard J. et al., HL Mencken A Descriptive Bibliography. http://www.univ-pau.fr/saes/pb/concours/bibliconc/04/hlmencken.htm

Bernard Genton HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN (1880-1956) Orientation bibliographique à l’intention des préparateurs Bibliographie générale (1) Principaux ouvrages publiés par Mencken (2) Anthologies et ouvrages publiés depuis 1956 (3) Correspondance, journal (4) Mencken en français (5) Ouvrages sur Mencken (6) Bibliographie générale SHRADER, Richard J. et al., H.L. Mencken : A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998, 638 p. Principaux ouvrages publiés par Mencken [Présentés dans l’ordre chronologique de leur première publication] MENCKEN, Henry Louis, George Bernard Shaw : His Plays . Boston : Luce, 1905, 107 p. The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche . New Brunswick, N. J. : Transaction Publishers, 1993, 304 p. [première édition 1908, nouvelle édition : See Sharp Press, juin 2003] A Book of Burlesques . New York : John Lane, 1916, 253 p. [non réédité depuis] A Book of Prefaces. New York : Octagon Books, 1977, 288 p [première édition 1917] In Defense of Women . New York : Octagon Books, 1977, 218 p. [première édition 1918, dernière édition Alexandria, Virginia : Time-Life Books, 1982] The American Language : An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States, edited and abridged by Raven I. Mc David, Jr

18. H.L. Mencken Quotes Quotes From HL Mencken. Henry Louis Mencken (18801956). No one everwent broke underestimating the taste of the American public. http://www.watchfuleye.com/mencken.html

Quotes From H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. Freedom of press is limited to those who own one. Those who can do. Those who can't teach. Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable. Nature abhors a moron. Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution. Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice. It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.

19. The Greatest H.L. Mencken Quotes John Petrie’s Collection of. HL Mencken Quotes. Henry Louis Mencken (18801956).For every complex problem there is a simple solution and it is wrong. http://www.arches.uga.edu/~jpetrie/mencken.html

H.L. Mencken Quotes Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) For every complex problem there is a simple solution... and it is wrong. After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. (On Shakespeare) Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup. Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself. There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

20. H.L. Mencken On American Literature - By Mencken, H. L. Book Review, by Mencken, HL. From The Critics Library Journal Editor, essayist, andsocial and cultural critic Henry Louis Mencken (18801956) was particularly http://www.bookfinder.us/review2/0821414291.html

H.L. Mencken on American Literature Joshi S. T Book Review AUTHOR: Mencken, H. L. ISBN: 0821414291 Compare price for this book Horror Authors A-Z Joshi S. T Editorial Review from Amazon H.L. Mencken on American Literature - Book Review, by Mencken, H. L. From Library Journal From Booklist Among other writing guises, Mencken was a book reviewer for 25 years and a legendarily caustic one, as befitted the curmudgeon. Yet when moved, he would not stint on praise and was one of the first to laud Twain as a giant of American letters. That Mencken pronounced judgment on fiction during one of American literature's more fecund periods, the 1910s and 1920s, makes this selection of his reviews of more than academic interest. The best-known novels of Dreiser, Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald were stretched on Mencken's rack; some, such as An American Tragedy, Mencken tortured with typically quotable execrations; and some, such as Main Street, he reprieved. Also represented here is the forgotten bilge of the era, sentimental best-sellers that Mencken overtly castigated but probably secretly delighted in as his vehicle for satirizing the tastes and beliefs of Rotarian society. Mencken as a reviewer remains discriminating and entertaining. Gilbert Taylor Buy this Book from Amazon.com

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