What do you think?
Minority Report
MENCKEN AT THE TOP OF HIS FORM IN A MANUSCRIPT COMPLETED PRIOR TO THE FALL OF 1948 BEFORE THE ONSET OF HIS ILLNESS
293 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
H.L. Mencken
664 books762 followersHenry Louis "H.L." Mencken became one of the most influential and prolific journalists in America in the 1920s and '30s, writing about all the shams and con artists in the world. He attacked chiropractors and the Ku Klux Klan, politicians and other journalists. Most of all, he attacked Puritan morality. He called Puritanism, "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for The American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Language (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, "When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."
When asked what he would like for an epitaph, Mencken wrote, "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."
(from American Public Media)
At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for The American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Language (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, "When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."
When asked what he would like for an epitaph, Mencken wrote, "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."
(from American Public Media)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 25, 2009
Really pretty good.
May 13, 2015
One iconoclastic romp after another. Even when you don't agree with Mister Mencken you can't stop reading his excellent prose. His is a view from another era that sometimes still holds sway today...sometimes not, but then, it gives us a literary picture of life, opinion and events of another day.
February 1, 2011
It is frightening how many things Menken says I agree with completely, only because I disagree utterly with about a quarter of what he says. A challenging book.
May 9, 2017
Sarcastic, sometimes cynical, and painfully hard on many professions, including mine. Many of his biting comments, however, are deserved.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews