Bücher von H. L. Mencken

The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, a classical book, has been considered essential throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

On the eve of the First World War, two iconoclastic young journalists, H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, were offered the co-editorship of The Smart Set, a New-York based magazine with literary ambitions. During their nine years as co-editors, from 1914 until 1923, Mencken and Nathan transformed The Smart Set into a must-read of the early jazz era, established themselves as two of America's foremost critics, and became bona-fide celebrities in American popular culture. Indeed, "Mencken and Nathan" were at times as popular collectively as they were separately. Among their writings in The Smart Set are a jointly authored series of nine "Conversations," written dialogues between Mencken and Nathan that depict their personal interactions in various circumstances and locales, chronicling a series of events perhaps both real and imagined. Taken together, the "Conversations" offer a plausible if somewhat exaggerated representation of their idiosyncratic relationship as authors and editors. Published here with a new Introduction and Glossary, The Smart Set "Conversations" of H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan are reprinted in the present edition in their entirety. H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan were controversial figures during their era. They were culture warriors, disruptors, instigators, masters of satire and irony. Their writings were often offensive to readers then and will likely engender only greater offense now. Contemporary readers may find The Smart Set "Conversations" to be a timely reflection upon the history of the American public dialog. This edition of The Smart Set "Conversations" is intended for mature readers interested in the history of arts and literature, as well as the American popular culture of the 1920s.

The 1918 book In Defense of Women by H. L. Mencken discusses women and how the sexes interact. The book has received both progressive and reactionary reviews. Mencken did not advocate for women's rights, but he did disparage ordinary males by describing women as wiser in a number of innovative and observable ways. The defense was originally titled A Book for Men Only, but it also had the working titles The Eternal Feminine and The Infernal Feminine. In an effort to reach a larger audience, Mencken issued a new edition of the book in 1922 after Philip Goodman had first published it in 1918. This Alfred Knopf second edition was both lengthier and kinder than the first. Mencken frequently advocated political, religious, and metaphysical viewpoints that emphasized their grotesqueness and absurdity; in this context, he welcomed escape from the alleged deceit of such solemn issues. The book received excellent reviews, with four times as many positive as negative ones, according to Carl Bode. Less than 900 copies of the book's initial edition were sold, which was a disappointing result. During the more progressive Roaring Twenties, the second edition fared significantly better in terms of sales.

In Damn! A Book of Calumny, H.L. Mencken gives his opinion on a wide variety of subjects ranging from William Jennings Bryan, through Classical Music, to Zoos. I am a huge fan of Mencken's hilarious, bombastic, and sesquipedalian style. He is the quintessential American cynic and it's a lot of fun to watch him smash every sacred cow he can get his hands on. The fact that I disagree with his opinions much of the time does nothing to dampen my enjoyment of reading him. To understand the American mind in the 3 decades before WWII, it's essential to read him. (Noah Goats)About the author:Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also gained him attention.As a scholar, Mencken is known for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States. As an admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he was an outspoken opponent of organized religion, theism, and representative democracy, the last of which he viewed as a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. Mencken was a supporter of scientific progress and was critical of osteopathy and chiropractic. He was also an open critic of economics.Mencken opposed the American entry into World War I and World War II. Some of the opinions in his private diary entries have been described by some researchers as racist and anti-Semitic, although this characterization has been disputed. Larry S. Gibson argued that Mencken's views on race changed significantly between his early and later writings, and that it was more accurate to describe Mencken as elitist than racist. He seemed to show a genuine enthusiasm for militarism but never in its American form. "War is a good thing", he wrote, "because it is honest, it admits the central fact of human nature.... A nation too long at peace becomes a sort of gigantic old maid".His longtime home in the Union Square neighborhood of West Baltimore was turned into a city museum, the H. L. Mencken House. His papers were distributed among various city and university libraries, with the largest collection held in the Mencken Room at the central branch of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. (wikipedia.org)

In Defense of Women , a classic since it was first published. Has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.

A new, completely revised and much extended edition of H. L. Mencken's well-known work first issued in a limited edition as a "preliminary inquiry" in 1919, this book is the most comprehensive treatise on the American dialect ever attempted. It almost exhausts the subject. It is a genuine "magnus opus" of over 500 pages, with extensive bibliographies and a word and phrase index of 12,000 entries. Avoiding the typical dullness of such books about language, Mencken created a thoroughly entertaining read.The bulk of the previous research and writing on the American Language, according to Mencken in the Preface to the First Edition, had been dedicated "to absurd efforts to prove that no such thing as an American variety of English existed - that the differences I constantly encountered in English and that my English friends encountered in American were chiefly imaginary."THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE was nothing less than a declaration of linguistic independence. No more would America suffer the oppression of literary colonialism. A new day had dawned on American literature. "American writers were finally able to take flight from the old tree and to trust for the first time their own dialect," Edmund Wilson observed. "Mencken showed the positive value of our own Vulgate heritage."

With a renowned style, Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. This collection of 70 political pieces drawn from Mencken's Monday columns in the "Baltimore Evening Sun" during the 1920s and 1930s shows the "Sage of Baltimore" at his satirical best.

In 1956, at the end of his career, Mencken had produced three volumes of memoirs and steady stream of journalism. For this book, he collected those pieces he thought most true, most pertinent, or most likely to blow the dust from the reader's brain.

Perhaps America's foremost literary stylist and most mordant wit, H.L. Mencken's most engaging writing told about his own life and experiences. In Mencken on Mencken, S.T. Joshi has assembled a hefty collection of the best of Mencken's autobiographical pieces that have not appeared previously in book form.

Written in 1941-42, these highlights capture the excitement of newspaper life in the heyday of print journalism.

Controversial even before it was published in 1930, Treatise on the Gods collects Mencken's scathing commentary on religion.

These thirty-five essays-each a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse-have been selected from six volumes originally published between 1919 and 1927.

In the second volume of his autobiography, Mencken recalls his years as a young reporter.

Mencken covers a range of subjects, from Hoggie Unglebower, the best dog trainer in Christendom, to his visit to the Holy Land, where he looked for the ruins of Gomorrah.

Here Mencken recalls memories of a safe and happy boyhood in the Baltimore of the 1880s.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.