Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis)

Mencken, H[enry] L[ouis] (1880–1956),Baltimore journalist, critic, and essayist, began his career on local newspapers in 1899, becoming editor of the Evening Herald (1905–6), and thereafter serving on the staff of the Evening Sun, during 1916–17 as war correspondent in Germany. He became literary critic of The Smart Set in 1908, and was co‐editor of this lively periodical with George Jean Nathan (1914–23). His collaboration with Nathan continued during the early years of The American Mercury, which they founded in 1924 and which Mencken edited until 1933. He is best known for the aggressive iconoclasm of his editorial policies in these magazines, especially during the decade following World War I, when he exhibited a savagely satirical reaction against the blunders and imperfections of democracy and the cultural gaucheries of the American scene. Although this attitude implied doubt of the ultimate effectiveness of American institutions, he was equally vehement in his denunciation of European patronage of this country, and in his advocacy of an indigenous civilization. His critical views were widely influential, especially in his encouragement of such writers as Dreiser, Lewis, Cabell, and Sherwood Anderson, although he aroused much popular antagonism.

He published many books, of which the earliest were the Kiplingesque Ventures into Verse (1903) and two critical works, George Bernard Shaw—His Plays (1905) and The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908). Collaborations with Nathan include two plays, The Artist (1912) and Heliogabalus (1920); The American Credo (1920); and Europe After 8:15 (1914), a travel book to which W. H. Wright also contributed. His most important work of scholarship is The American Language (1919, revised 1921, 1923, 1936; supplementary volumes, 1945 and 1948), a discussion of the English language in the U.S., noting its significant American development. Besides the celebrated six series of Prejudices (1919–27), he also wrote introductions and notes for editions of Ibsen, Nietzsche, and others; A Book of Burlesques (1916); A Book of Prefaces (1917); In Defense of Women (1918); Notes on Democracy (1926); Treatise on the Gods (1930); Making a President (1932); Treatise on Right and Wrong (1934); Happy Days, 1880–1892 (1940), Newspaper Days, 1899–1906 (1941), and Heathen Days, 1890–1936 (1943), humorous autobiographical sketches; and Minority Report (1956), jottings drawn from his notebooks. He compiled A New Dictionary of Quotations, on Historical Principles (1942). His Letters (1961) prints some correspondence on literary matters only. His Diary, full and open, was finally published in 1989. An autobiography, My Life as Author and Editor, appeared in 1993, having been sealed for 35 years after his death.