Synopses & Reviews
This is the first biography since his death of the man Edmund Wilson has called the greatest practicing literary journalist” since Poe. It is also the first fully documented life to be issued. Mr. Bode has based his book on a host of Mencken letters, many unpublished; on family papers; on a variety of Mencken materials in print and out; and on many taped interviews with remaining friends of Mencken as well as with some of his old enemies. Two other things about the book are important firsts.” The book analyzes Menckens writing as it related to his life. And the book indicates the relation of Mencken to his time
Mr Bodes Mencken takes us from the almost pastoral Baltimore of the 1880s when Mencken was a boy; through World War I when Mencken was termed a traitor; into the Roaring Twenties when he was the decades leading intellectual, magazine editor, and newspaper man; into the Depression when his influence sank to nearly nothing; then into the 1940s when he issued his mellow reminiscences; and finally to his last years in Baltimore.
Among the chapters are: Daily and Sunday,” Dreiser and the Fruits of Dissidence,” The Mercury: Menckens Mind and Art,” Mainstay of the Sun,” Mencken, Darwin, and God,” Mencken in Love,” The Circus of Dr. R.,” and Friends and Familiars.”
Review
Review
Review
Magnificent biography.... A Mencken
Review
No other study has been nearly as successful as this one in presenting the late H. L. Mencken in context.”Gerald J. Johnson, Chicago Sun-Times Book Week
Synopsis
This is the first biography since his death of the man Edmund Wilson has called the "greatest practicing literary journalist" since Poe. It is also the first fully documented life to be issued. Mr. Bode has based his book on a host of Mencken letters, many unpublished; on family papers; on a variety of Mencken materials in print and out; and on many taped interviews with remaining friends of Mencken as well as with some of his old enemies. Two other things about the book are important "firsts." The book analyzes Mencken's writing as it related to his life. And the book indicates the relation of Mencken to his time
Mr Bode's Mencken takes us from the almost pastoral Baltimore of the 1880's when Mencken was a boy; through World War I when Mencken was termed a traitor; into the Roaring Twenties when he was the decade's leading intellectual, magazine editor, and newspaper man; into the Depression when his influence sank to nearly nothing; then into the 1940's when he issued his mellow reminiscences; and finally to his last years in Baltimore.
Among the chapters are: "Daily and Sunday," "Dreiser and the Fruits of Dissidence," "The Mercury: Mencken's Mind and Art," "Mainstay of the Sun, ""Mencken, Darwin, and God," "Mencken in Love," "The Circus of Dr. R.," and "Friends and Familiars."
Description
Bibliographical references included in "Notes" (p. 390-436)
Bibliographical references included in "Notes" (p. 390-436)
Bibliographical references included in "Notes" (p. 390-436)
About the Author
Carl Bode is Professor of English at the University of Maryland. He has written widely on various phases of American literature, particularly on twentieth-century culture.