H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: The First, Second, and Third Series

by H.L. Mencken

H.L. Manken used his acerbic wit and intelligence to attack some of the hypocrisies in his times in one of the most engaging tracts written on the subjects. Including some of his most famous works like "The National Letters", "The Sahara of the Bozart", and "The Allied Arts", the first three Series are must own works that should be enjoyed by anyone looking at the social and political progress of American society through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Classics, 20th Century, Philosophy, Journalism, Criticism

624 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Henry 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)

Reviews

[Bradford D · Rating 1 out of 5]

For someone who insists he is intellectually superior to the common rabble, Mencken's own words betray him as an unenlightened snob who happens to own a thesaurus. The only thing advanced about his writing is his use of ten-dollar words available in any good thesaurus. His actual thinking is firmly rooted in the attitudes of the time and his own privileged upbringing. His views on race are not even up to the writings of Twain forty years prior to him. He confuses birth into money with a genetic ability to think and appreciate art and culture. He fails to recognize the groundbreaking jazz of his own time, instead clinging to older music more acceptable in his social circles, exclusively wealthy white circles. Throw in his sexist dismissal of the suffrage movement and his parochial cultural preferences and at his core you have an early 20th century version of Bill O'Reilly.

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

H.L. Mencken will not abide any sort of bosh, claptrap, piffle, hocus pocus or pishposh.

[Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Library of America Series of H.L. Mencken is fascinating. Loved, admired, hated, and respected, Mencken was an original. His literary work and public persona made people think and still do.

[Michael Fredette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Commentary and literary criticism from H.L. Mencken, collected here in a Library of America omnibus volume. Some of the subjects are bound to be obscure to modern readers (although there is a helpful collection of End Notes appended), but I was struck by the timelessness of some of the ideas and phenomena described (e.g. an anti-vaccination advocate, a war being "sold" to the American people based on an exaggerated threat). His essay "On Being an American" is especially caustic; an Anti-American screed that is 3/4 Social Darwinist horseshit (many of us come from inferior racial stock [i.e. not Anglo-Saxon] and were unable to hack it in the homeland so we moved here!) and 1/4 uncomfortable truth.

[Fred R · Rating 5 out of 5]

The funniest American writer.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is at least the 2nd time I have reread this collection of essays Mencken is one of my Favorite writers both for his wit and his scathing word play.