Second Mencken Chrestomathy

Henry Louis Mencken was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1880 and died there in 1956. A son of August and Anna (Abhau) Mencken, he was educated privately and at Baltimore Polytechnic. In 1930 he married Sara Powell Haardt, who died in 1935. Mencken began his long career as journalist, critic, and philologist as a reporter for the Baltimore
Morning Herald
in 1899. In 1906 he joined the staff of the Baltimore
Sun
, thus initiating an association with the
Sunpapers
that would last until a few years before his death. He was coeditor of the
Smart Set
with George Jean Nathan from 1914 to 1923, and with Nathan he founded the
American Mercury
, of which he was sole editor from 1925 to 1933.

ALSO BY H. L. MENCKEN

The American Language
The American Language: Supplement I
The American Language: Supplement II
In Defense of Women
Prejudices
Notes on Democracy
Treatise on the Gods
Treatise on Right and Wrong
Happy Days
Newspaper Days
Heathen Days
A New Dictionary of Quotations
Christmas Story
A Mencken Chrestomathy
Minority Report: H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks
The Bathtub Hoax
Letters of H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken on Music
The American Language: The Fourth Edition and the Two Supplements, Abridged
The American Scene
The Diary of H. L. Mencken
My Life as Author and Editor

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, OCTOBER 1995

Copyright © 1994 by Enoch Pratt Free Library
Editing and annotations copyright © by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Introduction copyright © 1994 by Terry Teachout

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1995.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880–1956.
A second Mencken chrestomathy / by H. L. Mencken; selected,
revised, and annotated by the author; edited and with an
introduction by Terry Teachout.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83111-8
I. Teachout, Terry. II. Title.
PS3525.E43A6 1994
818′.5209—dc20
94-12087

v3.1

Cover

About the Author

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Editor’s Introduction