Mencken Henry Louis - The diary of H.L. Mencken

Menckens diary is funny, outrageous, authoritative, and tender in turns. His writings are clear and precise, and like nearly all of the millions of words he turned out in his lifetime, they are interesting. It tells valuable stories about people in the arts and letters of the people; it provides rich political profiles and sketches of men of power; and it contains quasi-essays about the state of American journalism at the time.

Christian Science Monitor

Mencken was an inveterate gossip, in the best sense, which is what makes the Diary so engaging as literary history. The book is a cornucopia of portraits of a wide range of literary, political and journalistic figures of the 1930s. And, of course, in the background there is the dynamo of Menckens mind humming away, throwing off sparks of wit and cynicism.

The Nation

Being opinionated was Menckens stock-in-trade. He did much to shatter the genteel tradition in American literature because, like George Bernard Shaw (a comparison he would loathe), he turned the venting of prejudice into an art form. Because Mencken was a terrific writerblunt, colorful and confidentthere is some fun to be had listening to the old boy grouse and rant.

San Francisco Chronicle

The Diary of H.L. Mencken is filled with everyday activities as well as amusing remarks The fact is that one can read Menckens diary for its prejudices and Roosevelt-hating politics or one can savor it for its literary and social observations.

The New York Times

One finds an incredibly complex man. His intellectual curiosity was exemplary; his industry was indefatigable; his encyclopedic knowledge was extraordinary, and his smooth writing makes even the mundane interesting. His flashes of humor could be ribald, cutting, and, on rare occasions, self-deprecating. The diary alone contains biting, insightful and sometimes funny references about encounters with Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis and others.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

A beautifully edited and lively look at the day-by-day life of a towering figure in journalism and language. Fechers editing is superb, always illuminating, often wryly humorous, never getting in the way.

Boston Herald

Mencken comes off as a more likeable character here than he does in most previous accounts written by or about him: a devoted husband and friend, a conscientious participant in business affairs at Knopf and the Baltimore Sunpapers, a lover of music, terrapin and beer. You will discover a depth of humanity and feeling in the Sage of Baltimore for which nothing previous can have prepared you.

Jonathan Yardley

ALSO BY CHARLES A. FECHER

Mencken: A Study of His Thought

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JANUARY 1991

Copyright 1989 by Enoch Pratt Free Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1989.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 18801956.
The diary of H. L. Mencken / edited by Charles A.
Fecher.1st
Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80886-8
1. Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 18801956Diaries.
2. Authors, American20th centuryDiaries.
I. Fecher, Charles A. II. Title.

[PS3525.E43Z463 1991]
818.5203dc20

[B] 90-50174

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