Reddit mentions of The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken

Lamentably I cannot go as in depth with this as I'd like to at the moment, being in the middle of a big move. Recently I (re)listened to the recorded interview of H. L. Mencken, taken to preserve the writer's voice and ad-lib wit for the Library of Congress' American Memory Project, as /u/caffarelli linked to in the thread's description. The LoC link is only an excerpt, but I found a youtube playlist that contains the interview in its entirety. This particular source is of interest, at least to me, as I believe it's the only recording of his voice that has been made and preserved for the public memory. While I am certainly critical in turn of a lot of the things that he had to say (though he was, of course, a product of his time), my connection to Mencken is one of fascination with his character, love of his wit and demeanor, and that he was instrumental to my own learning of sophisticated English (which is my second language).

I suspect there will be a few, particularly outside of the United States, who will not be very familiar with Mencken. Easily one of the most influential and lettered journalists and prose stylists of the twentieth century in the United States, Mencken was known for his blunt, verbose, and scathing essays and articles on American culture and politics, most notably during the 1920s and 1930s, with some significant output up until his death in 1956. Perhaps most famous for his lengthy history and analysis of The American Language and his reporting during the 1925 Scopes Trial (he coined the term "monkey trial"), he began his career with The Baltimore Herald and The Baltimore Sun, later wrote a little for The Smart Set (you'll hear his opinions on that in the interview), and founded The American Mercury with George Jean Nathan.

In the interview, you're going to hear some interesting opinions that Mencken had in regard to architectural and decorative aesthetics; living in Baltimore (he spent his entire life there); Baltimore journalism and the changes it underwent in his lifetime; his attitudes toward cigars, music, and religion; opinions on American politics and democratic government; his methods of coping with prohibition (he was fond of beer and drink of all type); and boxing.

Not one to eschew controversy, you're never going to hear a boring opinion written in one of Mencken's works. Critical of democracy for its entrustment of power to the plainfolk, who he believed acted often times in opposition to what he considered the "educated minority." Even so, he reveled in the American experience, thinking of its politics as "incomparably idiotic, and thus infinitely amusing"—"the art and science of running the circus from the monkey-cage." He was very scathing of populist movements, and perhaps the most derisive critic of William Jennings Bryan, whom he called "the indefatigable Jennings," going so far as to call Adolf Hitler "an Austrian William Jennings Bryan" (also referring to Hitler as "a Babbit run amok"). Immensely distrustful of such plainfolk, Mencken with no reservation voiced his opinions on the "booboisie," even in a mockery of poor literary education, translated the Declaration of Independence into simplified speech to be better understood by the masses of his time. One of his better known works, moreover, is "The Sahara of the Bozart," (PDF) a lengthy criticism of Southern culture prior to the Southern Renaissance (recommended from a literary perspective; its quality as a historical source is poor). Hyperbole was key to his writing; his criticisms always included it, and his less common advocacy of cultural elements he favored. He was not a strong advocate of objective journalism, and so his writing is as much a look into the person as they are the events he wrote about and the style he used. He's an excellent primary source, but not always one to help you negotiate your way to the facts. I know labor historians will certainly have some strong opinions on him due to his criticisms of Roosevelt and the New Deal. His idolization of German culture (though he despised National Socialism and the "thugs" that ran it) lost him a good amount of readership, though already well past the prime of his career.

I made a submission about this in /r/badhistory, but he also hoodwinked a great deal of reporters, historians, and the public with a short history of the bathtub in the United States, every word of which being a fabrication. The misinformation that Mencken provided went on to be printed in reputable publication as actual fact, though Mencken only sought to demonstrate how susceptible so many were to readily accept, without question, propaganda during WWI (doing so very successfully, might I add). He made an official retraction in 1926, but this did not necessarily stop the work being used as factual source material.

Again, this write up does not do justice as even a short biography of the man, so due to time constraints I'll live some further sources for anyone interested to look for in the library:

For his writings:

A Mencken Chrestomathy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949)

Prejudices: A Selection (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)

Damn! A Book of Calumny

The American Language

A good biography:

Teachout, T. The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken (NY: Harper Collins, 2002)

Sorry some of the links above are a bit bizarre. I have all his writings in print, and tried to throw in some ways for anyone interested to easily and cheaply access some of his writing.