num_pages: 672
description: When H. L. Mencken died in 1956, he left behind well-ordered diaries, letters, and personal papers that biographer Fred Hobson has collected in the definitive portrait of a complex and colorful life. In A Life, Hobson quotes liberally from Mencken's writings on every subject, from Americans ("the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag") to the English ("England gave us Puritanism, Germany gave us Pilsner"), from his thoughts on Jews (both "the most unpleasant race ever heard of" and "the chief dreamers of the human race, and beyond all comparison its greatest poets") to Puritanism ("that haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy"). Along with Mencken's well-known literary slashings at the "boobsoisie" -- with his trademark political "incorrectitude" -- Hobson's access to thousands of pages of personal manuscripts allows a broad and thoughtful look at the demons and affections of the personal life of the Sage of Baltimore. The result is a picture that would satisfy even its subject's critical eye. "A beautifully crafted, thoroughly entertaining and intellectually unsentimental book that even Mencken might find met his standards." -- Jack W. Germond, The Baltimore Sun "Mencken is a comprehensive yet bracingly readable effort that will delight readers as a cold glass of pilsner would have refreshed its subject on a summer's day." -- Martin F. Nolan, The Boston Globe
language: English
title: Mencken: A Life
titlecomplete: Mencken: A Life (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf)
characters: H.L. Mencken
genres: Biography
ratings_count: 23
publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press