Mencken, H. L. 1880-1956

CRITIC & EDITOR

Great Debunker.

During the 1920s few Americans matched Henry L. Mencken's influence as a writer and as an independent thinker. He was the decade's great debunker, aiming ridicule at the cowardice and ignorance of what he called the "booboisee."

"The Baltimore

Anti-Christ." Mencken graduated from the Baltimore Polytechnic School and became a reporter on the Baltimore Herald in 1899. He moved to the Baltimore Sun in 1906, and was associated with the Sunpapers as editor, correspondent, and columnist ("The Free Lance") for the rest of his working life. The force of Mencken's mind and the breadth of his learning enabled him to combine journalism with simultaneous careers as magazine editor, philologist, and literary-social critic. As editor of The Smart Set and The American Mercury, as well as a prolific contributor to other journals, Mencken had a strong...

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