A nice peek at a short fragment of the life of one of America's great iconoclasts. It really is fun to see him knock the stuffing out of somebody.

Of greatest interest to Mencken fans. ( )

4483. The Diary of H. L. Mencken, Edited by Charles A. Fecher (read 10 Sep 2008) This diary extends from 1930 to 1948--at which time Mencken had a disabling cerebral thrombosis. The diary is consistently interesting and one wants to keep reading, albeit that Mencken's opinions are horrendous and arrogant most of the time, and he spends many pages telling of his health problems. He is anti-Semitic and agnostic and hated FDR--and one gets the idea he did not think Hitler was so bad--at least he did not want the US to fight Hitler. Many important events during the years he kept the diary are not commented on, and there is trivia discussed at length. But it is an adventure to read what he had to say and his prodigious writing is remarkable. A fascinating if often annoying book. ( )

In Book Review

Title: The Diary of H. L. Mencken

Edited by: Charles A.Fecher

This book was kept in a vault of the Baltimore Enoch Pratt Library for 25 years after Mencken’s death in 1956. Journalistic critic and philologist on The Baltimore Morning Herald newspaper he then spent many years with the Baltimore Sun.

With George Jean Nathan he was co- editor of “Smart Set”, and they also founded “The American Mercury” and he authored many books -- “The American Language“, “Prejudices“, “Happy Days“, “Newspaper Days“, “Heathen Days“, and “The Minority Report“. From the blurb on the book cover “he was admired, feared, and famous for his merciless puncturing of smugness, his genius for deflating pomposity and pretense“. His friends and acquaintances covered the main characters of the literary world. He nourished a hatred for Franklin Delano Roosevelt which resulted in spectacular and celebrated feats of invective. As a human being he was prey to small superstitions, a hopeless hypochondriac, loving husband, a generous friend, and a confirmed a bigot. Blacks, Jews, and others such as politicians and certain authors received the brunt of his instabilities.

The book is only a diary but the editor has excerpted what he considers the most interesting parts and left out a lot of the repetitious items. Nonetheless there is great repetition of certain activities such as his attendance at board meetings of the Baltimore Sun and his stand on various issues. It brought out that he was definitely against the Sun getting into the radio business and had little hope for television. He felt that radio was simply a medium for the rabble and unintelligent (which seems to be very true today).

I had often heard about H. L. Mencken and reading his diary satisfied my curiosity as to what his nature really was. It certainly is not a novel but does have historical significance.