Mencken: A Life

by Fred Hobson

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

Genres: Biography

672 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 1994

About the author

Dr. Fred Colby Hobson Jr. is an English scholar whose wor focused on the U.S. South. He is a retired Professor of English, most recently at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Hobson received his A.B. in English from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, his M.A. in History from Duke University, and his Ph.D. English from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1972. Before joining UNC in 1989, Hobson taught at the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University.

Hobson's work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Atlantic, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He has written numerous books on American literature and intellectual history.

Reviews

[nobody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good overview of the great Mencken's life. This one really brought home the awful end of the amazing man, not that a lot of time was given to his post-stroke years, just that the way everything led up to it, made it stand out more. I'd certainly recommend this to every Mencken fan, and also put this up high on the list for people just a bit interested in his life. One small note, the last 100 pages are taken up by an index and notes, so it's not as long as a read as a first glance or page count might suggest.

[Mjackman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there were something like "Thompson on Mencken" or "Taibbi on Mencken" or somebody with as much sap as the old man but enough free time to write about him with verve or energy. Instead we get Hobson, who's pretty evenhanded, very scholarly and a good writer, but it just goes to show you that when the subject is somebody like Mencken, almost any biographer will leave you wanting.