The Days of H. L. Mencken: Trilogy and Accompanying Notes

FAIN: FT-60963-13

Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Washington, DC 20007-3080)

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), the prolific author, editor, newspaperman, and philologist, influenced two generations of writers, spanning the period from World War I through the 1920s. In light of Mencken's importance to the nation's cultural and literary heritage, I have been chosen to edit his autobiographical trilogy, "Happy Days, Newspaper Days and Heathen Days." This scholarly Library of America edition will also include the first publication of Mencken's "Additions, Corrections and Explanatory Notes," the last major primary historical documents released under time-lock. New knowledge includes how he honed his craft as well as intimate details of childhood and family, filling in personal and historical gaps in Mencken's biography. In Mencken's attempt to draw serious and meaningful conclusions about his life, flaws and imperfections, the man who emerges is not the vague legendary figure but the actual Baltimorean, who influenced such writers as Sinclair Lewis and Richard Wright.

Associated Products

Mencken: The Days of Trilogy Expanded Edition (Book)
Title: Mencken: The Days of Trilogy Expanded Edition
Author: Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
Editor: Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
Abstract: A major literary event: Mencken’s dazzling autobiography, with 200 pages of his own never-before-published commentary and photos. In 1936, at the age of fifty-five, H. L. Mencken published a reminiscence about his boyhood in The New Yorker, beginning a long and magnificent adventure in autobiography by America’s greatest journalist. Mencken went on to gather his childhood recollections in Happy Days (1940), a richly detailed, poignant account of growing up in Baltimore. A critical and popular success, the book surprised many with its glimpses of a less curmudgeonly Mencken, and there soon followed the absorbing sequels Newspaper Days (1941), charting his rise at the Baltimore Herald from cub reporter to editor, and Heathen Days (1943), recounting his varied excursions as journalist and public figure, including his coverage of the Scopes trial in 1925. But unknown to the legions of Days books’ admirers, Mencken continued to add to them after publication, annotating and expanding each volume in typescripts sealed to the public for twenty-five years after his death. Until now, most of this material—often more frank and unvarnished than the original Days books—has never been published. Containing nearly 200 pages of previously unseen writing, and illustrated with photographs from Mencken’s archives, many taken by Mencken himself, this expanded and definitive edition of the Days trilogy is a cause for celebration.
Year: 2014
Publisher: The Library of America
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: 9781598533088
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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