000			02147nam a2200253 a 4500
001			067532
005			20231009193447.0
008			220616s19941994nyu 000 u eng d
020			_a9780394563299
050	0	0	_aPS3560.O3746 _bZ46 2014
082	1		_a92 MEN _2
100	1		_aHobson, Fred
245	1	0	_aMencken _b: a life _c/ Fred Hobson
260			_aNew York _b: Random House _c, 1994
300			_a650 p. _b: illus. _c; 25 cm
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index
520			_aMencken lived almost his entire life in the city he called ``the most livable of any on earth : Baltimore. Hobson does a balanced and convincing job of letting his subject speak for himself and yet also of pointing out the gaps in the self-portrait. Mencken's German background, he notes, only partially accounts for his admiration of Hitler and his outspoken dislike of all things British. Hobson readily admits Mencken's anti-Semitism yet discusses it alongside his frequent aid to fellow writers of every religion and race. . His turbulent friendship with Theodore Dreiser threads its way through the biography as does his long and mutually profitable relationship with his publisher Alfred A. Knopf. No matter how much one may admire Mencken's witty prose and his excoriation of society's foibles, it is hard to feel affection for this hypocondriacal curmudgeon as he turns against old friends and entangles women in his web of words: Marion Bloom, his greatest epistolary love, saved hundreds of his letters despite Mencken's prohibition, while he destroyed hers; his brief marriage to Sara Haardt was overshadowed by her fatal illnesses. Mencken chronicled his own life so fully in Prejudices and in his autobiographical trilogy that this enormous biography seems almost gratuitous, but it places Mencken firmly in his times and among his circle in a broader context than do his own caustic reflections.
546			_aEnglish
600	1	0	_aMencken, H.L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956
650		4	_aAuthors, American _y-20th century _x-Biography
650		4	_aEditors _z-United States _v--Biography
942			_cMO
999			_c272170 _d272170