Mencken
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Book Overview
This is the first biography since his death of the man Edmund Wilson has called the "greatest practicing literary journalist" since Poe. It is also the first fully documented life to be issued. Mr.... This description may be from another edition of this product.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:080183404X
ISBN13:9780801834042
Release Date:August 1986
Publisher:Johns Hopkins University Press
Length:452 Pages
Weight:1.19 lbs.
Dimensions:1.3" x 5.1" x 8.1"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Great review of Mencken & his anti-puritan/big gov't thought
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
Bode's biography of Mencken changed my life, in that is was an introduction to the Baltimore critic Mencken's role in shaping libertarian thought and appreciation. Actually, I daydreamed back in college through a linguistics class that used Mencken's American Language textbook, but it took Bode's biography to teach me how important Mencken was to realism and the fight against puritans and Big Government pablum. While I ignored the classics in school, Bode's story of Mencken's critique of the great writers of the 20's and 30's gave me a list of books to read. As a libertarian Mencken's favorites -- Theodore Dreiser, Joseph Conrad, Sinclair Lewis, etc. -- have delighted me as much as Bode's biography. The lonely, creative individualist in Dreiser's "The Genius" and Conrad's "Victory" is the same character that Mencken is. For that matter, Ayn Rand seems to be in a similar class as Mencken. Thank God I stumbled upon Bode's book.
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