- In full:
- Henry Louis Mencken
- Died:
- January 29, 1956, Baltimore (aged 75)
- Founder:
- George Jean Nathan
- āAmerican Mercuryā
- Notable Works:
- āPrejudicesā
- āThe American Languageā
H.L. Mencken
-
Who was H.L. Mencken?
H.L. Mencken (1880ā1956) was a controversial American journalist and critic known for his humorous yet combative opinions. He critiqued American life and powerfully influenced U.S. fiction through the 1920s.
Mencken worked for the Baltimore Sun and, with George Jean Nathan, edited The Smart Set from 1914 to 1923, which helped American literature grow. In 1924, Mencken and Nathan founded the American Mercury, a monthly literary magazine known for its often satiric commentary on American life, politics, and customs, which Mencken edited until 1933.
Mencken's reviews filled six volumes titled Prejudices (1919ā27). He fought against writers he thought were fraudulently successful while supporting newcomers like Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. Mencken's book, The American Language, published in 1919 with supplements in 1945 and 1948, became a leading authority on American expressions and idioms.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What kinds of writing is H.L. Mencken known for?
H.L. Mencken was a journalist and critic known for his humorous and combative opinions on American life. He wrote reviews and essays that filled six volumes titled Prejudices. As a critic, he fought against writers he viewed as fraudulent while supporting newcomers like Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis.
Mencken founded the American Mercury with George Jean Nathan and also edited The Smart Set. Additionally, he was the leading authority on American English and published The American Language, a volume of American expressions and idioms, expanded in later supplements. Mencken's autobiographical trilogy includes Happy Days, Newspaper Days, and Heathen Days.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
When did H.L. Mencken live and write?
H.L. Mencken, born September 12, 1880, in Baltimore, Maryland, was a prominent and controversial American journalist and critic. He significantly impacted U.S. fiction in the 1920s with his humorous yet combative opinions, particularly his critiques of the middle class.
Mencken's career included working for the Baltimore Morning Herald starting in 1899 and later joining the Baltimore Sun in 1906. He co-edited The Smart Set from 1914 to 1923 and founded the American Mercury in 1924, which he edited until 1933. His writings often targeted American social and cultural weaknesses, and he championed writers like Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. Mencken died on January 29, 1956, in Baltimore.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
Why is H.L. Mencken called the 'Sage of Baltimore'?
H.L. Mencken, a controversial journalist and critic of American life, worked for the Baltimore Sun at intervals throughout most of his life. Mencken was a pungent critic of American life known for his humorous but combative opinions. From 1914 to 1923, he edited The Smart Set with George Jean Nathan, and in 1924, they founded The American Mercury. Mencken's reviews and essays filled six volumes titled Prejudices (1919ā27). He is known for his satire and jeering at American sham and pretension.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How did H.L. Mencken influence American journalism and literature?
H.L. Mencken was a controversial journalist and critic who significantly shaped American fiction during the 1920s. As a literary critic, he championed writers like Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis while attacking what he saw as fraudulent or sham writers. Mencken co-edited The Smart Set from 1914 to 1923 and founded The American Mercury in 1924, using these platforms to criticize American social and cultural weaknesses, including the middle class, whom he derisively called the "booboisie".
Mencken also contributed to American culture through his work on the American language. His book, The American Language, published in 1919, documented American expressions and idioms. Menckenās work established him as a leading authority on the language of the United States.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What are some major works written by H.L. Mencken, and what makes them important?
H.L. Mencken was a journalist and critic known for his humorous and combative opinions. His major works include The American Language (1919), a study of American English, and a six-volume collection of essays titled Prejudices (1919ā27), which contain his literary criticisms. Also of note is his autobiographical trilogy, Happy Days (1940), Newspaper Days (1941), and Heathen Days (1943).
Mencken's writings are important because he was an influential literary critic who helped to grow American literature by recognizing newcomers such as Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. He also ridiculed what he saw as American sham, pretension, provincialism, and prudery.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
H.L. Mencken (born September 12, 1880, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.ādied January 29, 1956, Baltimore) was a controversial journalist and pungent critic of American life who powerfully influenced U.S. fiction through the 1920s and was known for his humorous but combative opinions, especially his attacks on the middle class.
(Read H.L. Menckenās 1926 Britannica essay on American English.)
Mencken attended a Baltimore private school and the Baltimore Polytechnic. He became a reporter for the Baltimore Morning Herald in 1899 and in 1906 joined the staff of the Baltimore Sun, where he worked at intervals throughout most of his life. From 1914 to 1923 he edited (with George Jean Nathan) The Smart Set, a witty urban magazine influential in the growth of American literature, and in 1924 he and Nathan founded the American Mercury, which Mencken edited until 1933.
Mencken was probably the most influential American literary critic in the 1920s, and he often used his criticism as a point of departure to jab at various American social and cultural weaknesses. His reviews and miscellaneous essays filled six volumes aptly titled Prejudices (1919ā27). In literature he fought against what he regarded as fraudulently successful writers and worked for the recognition of such outstanding newcomers as Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. He jeered at American sham, pretension, provincialism, and prudery, and he ridiculed the nationās organized religion, business, and middle class (or, as he termed it, the ābooboisie,ā a derisive play on bourgeoisie).
Menckenās caustic view of life remained with him throughout his career, and in the 1930s and ā40s he altered considerably less than the world around him, with the result that his influence almost disappeared. Few people found the Great Depression a subject for satire of any sort, yet he was as satirical about U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal as he had been about U.S. Pres. Herbert Hoover and Prohibition.
More troubling were his views on Jews and African Americans. For many years the more sympathetic understanding of Mencken was that he was a Germanophileāi.e., someone who favors German culture and customsāwho was slower than some of his public to recognize the threat of Adolf Hitler and Nazism and to take it seriously. However, the publication of Menckenās diaries in 1989 revealed a man with virulent racist and anti-Semitic views. Though Mencken wrote an article in 1948 denouncing Baltimoreās segregation laws, he expressed a patronizing view of Black people in his private writing. In one entry he described Black women as āchild-like,ā adding that āeven hard experience does not teach them anything.ā In an entry on the admittance of Jews to the exclusive Maryland Club, Mencken declared Baltimoreās Jews as not āsuitableā to be allowed to eat there. He also railed against U.S. participation in World War II and made no comment in his diaries about the discovery of Nazi concentration camps after the war. In his introduction to the published diaries (as The Diary of H.L. Mencken), editor Charles A. Fecher wrote that Mencken āseems to have had no conception at all of what a German-Japanese victory would have meant to the civilized world, or to the liberties that he himself so cherished.ā
Mencken made another important contribution to American culture. In 1919 he published a solid volume, The American Language, in an attempt to bring together examples of American, rather than English, expressions and idioms. The book at once attracted attention. It grew with each reissue through the years, and in 1945 and 1948 Mencken published substantial supplements. By the time of his death, he was perhaps the leading authority on the language of his country.
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
Menckenās autobiographical trilogy, Happy Days (1940), Newspaper Days (1941), and Heathen Days (1943), is devoted to his experiences in journalism.