Mencken on Mencken

by Mencken, H. L.

• ISBN13: 9780807135921
• ISBN10: 0807135925
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

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. 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.

Author Biography

S. T. Joshi is the author of H. L. Mencken: An Annotated Bibliography and editor of Mencken's America, H. L. Mencken on Religion, and H. L. Mencken on American Literature. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
A note on this edition	p. 13
Prologue	p. 15
Memories of a Long Life
Early Days	p. 17
Old Days	p. 18
Surdi Audiunt	p. 21
The Passing of "The Hill"	p. 27
West Baltimore	p. 32
Man of Means	p. 37
Tale of a Traveller	p. 38
An Evening on the House	p. 45
Baltimoriana	p. 52
Obsequies in the	p. 55
Love Story	p. 62
The Life of an Artist	p. 70
The Life of Tone	p. 85
Author and Journalist
A Footnote on Journalism	p. 92
Reminiscences of the	p. 96
On Breaking into Type	p. 99
Walter Abell and the Sun	p. 103
Twenty-five Years of the Evening Sun	p. 106
A Word about the Smart Set	p. 109
Foreword to A Bibliography of the Writings of	p. 116
Five Years of the American Mercury	p. 117
Ten Years of the American Mercury	p. 123
Memoirs of an Editor	p. 126
The Worst Trade of Them All	p. 131
Why I Am Not a Book Collector	p. 135
Thinker
Off the Grand Banks	p. 139
Meditations at Vespers	p. 142
What Is This Talk about Utopia?	p. 145
What I Believe	p. 148
On the Meaning of Life	p. 158
"Generally Political"	p. 160
World Traveler
At the Edge of the Spanish Main	p. 168
The Beeriad	p. 172
At Large in London	p. 184
Reminiscences of 1917	p. 197
The Black Country	p. 200
West Indian Notes	p. 203
Our Footloose Correspondents	p. 206
Foreign Parts	p. 208
The Adriatic: East Side	p. 224
Epilogue
Henry Louis Mencken (1936)	p. 229
Notes	p. 231
Glossary of Names	p. 239
Bibliography of Originals Appearances	p. 255
Index	p. 257
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