The Diary of H. L. Mencken

by H.L. Mencken, Charles A. Fecher (Editor)

A Historical the never-before, published diary of the most outspoken, iconoclastic, ferociously articulate of American social critics -- the sui generis newspaperman, columnist for the Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury, and author of The American Language, who was admired, feared, and famous for his merciless puncturing of smugness, his genius for deflating pomposity and pretense, his polemical brilliance. Walter Lippmann called him, in 1926, "the most powerful personal influence on this whole generation of educated Americans."

H. L. Mencken's diary was, at his own request, kept sealed in the vaults of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library for a quarter of a century after his death. The diary covers the years 1930 -- 1948, and provides a vivid, unvarnished, sometimes shocking picture of Mencken himself, his world, and his friends and antagonists, from Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and William Faulkner to Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom Mencken nourished a hatred that resulted in spectacular and celebrated feats of invective.

From the more than 2,000 pages of typescript that have now come to light, the Mencken scholar Charles A. Fecher has made a generous selection of entries carefully chosen to preserve the whole range, color, and impact of the diary. Here, full scale, is Mencken the unique observer and disturber of American society. And here too is Mencken the human being of wildly contradictory the skeptic who was prey to small superstitions, the dare-all warrior who was a hopeless hypochondriac, the loving husband and generous friend who was, alas, a bigot.

Mencken emerges from these pages unretouched -- in all the often outrageous gadfly vitality that made him, at his brilliant best, so important to the intellectual fabric of American life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History

510 pages, Hardcover

First published December 3, 1989

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

[Sam Rennick]

You'll never like Mencken until you are willing at least to acknowledge, if not actually accept, that which was unlikeable in the man. It's a long list. Mencken was the ultimate name-caller, and what is more childish than this? "Booboisie," "mountebank," "jackass," "buncombe." His heritage was German and he was immensely proud of it, which unfortunately translated into a notorious slowness to condemn the Nazis, while criticizing FDR liberally, and ditto Woodrow Wilson in the previous war. He hated the Jews. Take this sentence from the Introduction to Charles Fecher's superb book: "Let it be said at once, clearly and unequivocally: Mencken was an anti-Semite." Not much ambiguity there! Might we enquire if, beneath this boorish exterior, we'd find a heart of gold? That's a bit much, yet Mencken wasn't always on a tirade. He loved his wife Sara and said so: "Despite her frequent illnesses, and the cruel anxieties that went with them, my scant five years with her were completely happy, and I look back upon them with the utmost satisfaction." He was equally affectionate about his hometown, Baltimore, where he spent his life. Mencken was undeniably a man of letters, erudite and well-read. One wonders, if he were alive today, what he'd say of our shallow, vulgar culture. It would be fun. "The Diary of H.L. Mencken" is a work of true scholarship, with many, captivating footnotes and wonderful photos. Five stars.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit]

I loved the entry about Moby Dick (amazed by its badness). I read that in a book shop some time ago and finally purchased the book.

Very nice although not as interesting and entertaining as I had hoped. He was an antisemite as the editor warns us. Although I found that tolerable. And he seemed to be good friends with the Knopfs (his publisher). There is one Joseph Hergesheimer another friend who gets a lot of entries. A writer at the time very famous who suddenly suffers from a writer’s block and gets poorer and poorer. A sad story in passing. Quite some name-dropping. And funny how the editor takes for granted that we know who Sinclair end even Bennett is but explains to us in a footnote who Chase is. (He mentions again and again that he had advised Sinclair to decline the Pulitzer and Noble prize. Succeed only with the former advise.)

He married late and was a widower a couple of years later. He does not say anything in these diaries at the time but there is a very touching remembrance five years later.

He hated Roosevelt. And it seems he hated paying taxes. He obviously thought himself superior to nearly everyone in the world. He despised the white trash much more than negroes. For one thing the latter grew flowers in the gardens.

Not one of the nicer guys. But brilliant.

[Nicola Pierce]

Four stars - because it's well written and crammed with all sorts that would appeal to the historian, sociologist and journalist. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to. In fact, it very quickly became a chore to read but I stuck with it as a bookseller had gone to some trouble to get it for me second-hand. I wanted it after reading a couple of entries in 'The Assassin's Cloak', an anthology of diaries. Those initial entries misrepresented him to me in that I expected a man of humour and warmth but on reading this, I found him to be anything but! Actually, I found this a largely depressing read - and I've read the life of Dorothy Parker! He was too caught up in his legacy and, therefore, much too formal in his diary and somewhat boring! I wondered about the editing too. There was quite a bit of repetition where I had to double check that I hadn't lost my page and was simply rereading stuff. I will admire his sense of duty. He visited a lot of people in hospital and he treated his staff, professional and domestic, very well. But, lordy, he had to be best at everything - from giving dinners to speeches. He would hate me but I found myself pitying him - he lacked joy or, at least, that is how it appeared in his diary. Maybe that was my problem - I could not relate to him at all which is hardly his fault. Anyway, four stars it is!

[JerryDeanHalleck]

Fascinating book if you find Mencken interesting. Mostly covers the 1940s, with lots of entries between 1940-1945. Mencken's political and cultural views were a strange mix. He hated Anglo-Saxons, Hillbillies, and FDR. Loved German Jews, blacks, and Freedom of Speech. His comments on the people from West Virignina and Appalachia who came to Baltimore during WW 2 are so scurillous as to defy belief. But that one of Mencken's strengths, he was always honest and never boring.

[Jon Walgren]

I loved this book and finally became acquainted with Mencken. The 'DIARIES" have caused me to add many new books to my "want to read" read list, all by Henry Louis.

[Mia]

A fascinating glimpse into the more private thoughts of a famous early 20th-Century editor, critic and curmudgeon. Particularly interesting if you want the dirt on who was supplying whom with bootlegged liquor during prohibition, or how serious the drinking problems of Sinclair Lewis or F. Scott Fitzgerald were. Not so great for understanding his antipathy toward FDR and the New Deal, or if you expect a late-20th Century perspective on race/racism, sexism, etc. and the pitfalls of stereotypes. There are occasions when one could easily point out flaws in his logic, but would have to go back 75 years to explain it, and you would have been in the minority. And really, there are times when it is refreshing to see somebody come out and call an acquaintance a complete idiot; there was a valid reason for Mencken not to have wanted these diaries published while anyone he knew was still alive. An entertaining and informative and provocative read.

[Kimb]

I have no idea why I read this. I don't care about H.L. Mencken and this diary written later in his life is basically just him bitching about his ailments and assuming he'll die soon.

He does hobnob with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and other famous early American writers, but it doesn't make this both worth reading.

[Varmint]

interesting in that you can cross reference the dates of his books to the diary. find out who he was interacting with, and what he was drinking when he wrote heathen days.


a must for the mencken obsessive.

[David Sumner]

What a boring racist of a little man.