This Wonderful Sequel to the best-selling A Mencken Chrestomathy of nearly half a century ago is full of the iconoclastic common sense that marked H. L. Mencken's astonishing career as the premier American social critic of the twentieth century. Gathered by Mencken himself before he died in 1956, this second chrestomathy ("a collection of selected literary passages," with the accent on the tom) contains writings about a variety of subjects - politics, war, music, literature, men and women, lawyers, brethren of the cloth. Some of his essays have beguiling titles - "Notes for an Honest Autobiography," "The Commonwealth of Morons," "Le Vice Anglais," "Acres of Babble," "Hooch for the Artist." All of them are a pleasure to read, and we are reminded that what Mencken wrote in the early years of this century remains applicable to a very different America.
Author(s): H. L. Mencken
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: A. A. Knopf; Vintage Books
Year: 1995; 2013
Language: English
Commentary: Metadata completed.
Pages: xxvi + 491
Editor’s Introduction
I. Americana
The Commonwealth of Morons
The Pushful American
The Metaphysic of Rotary
The Yokel
Varieties of Envy
The Immigration Problem
Utopia in Little
Bring On the Clowns
II. Politics
The Politician Under Democracy
The Joboisie
The Men Who Rule Us
Liberty and Democracy
Leaves from a Note-book
The True Immortal
The Same Old Gang
Reflections on Government
The End of an Era
The Suicide of Democracy
The Last Ditch
Liberalism
III. War
The War Against War
Summary Judgment
The Next Round
The Art of Selling War
Onward, Christian Soldiers!
War Without Art
Memorials of Dishonor
IV. Criminology
The Nature of Liberty
The Beloved Turnkey
Cops and Their Art
Jack Ketch as Eugenist
The Humanitarian Fallacy
One Size Fits All
More and Better Psychopaths
The Arbuckle Case
V. Law and Lawyers
Stewards of Nonsense
Over the Side
The Judge
VI. First Things
The Genesis of a Deity
Christian Origins
The Root of Religion
The Mask
The Eternal Mob
The IQ of Holy Church
Literary Theologians
The Believing Mind
The Road of Doubt
Veritas Odium Parit
VII. Brethren of the Cloth
Playing with Fire
Shock Troops
Story Without a Moral
Divine Virtuosity
VIII. Man and Superman
The Great Illusion
Ethical Origins
The Flesh Is Weak
The Supreme Curse
Thrift
The Genealogy of Etiquette
At the Mercy of the Mob
The Goal
The Superman
Heredity
Happiness
The Horns of the Dilemma
IX. Men and Women
The Curse of Man
Le Vice Anglais
Sex on the Stage
Women as Spectacles
Venus at the Domestic Hearth
Clubs
Efficiency as Charm
Woman and the Artist
Martyrs
Issue
The Burnt Child
On Connubial Bliss
Divorce
Cast a Cold Eye
X. Progress
Aubade
Thomas Henry Huxley
The Eternal Riddle
Two Benefactors of Mankind
Elegy
Sketch Maritime
Penguin’s Eggs
XI. Making a Living
The Professions
Dazzling the Public
The Puppet’s Pretension
The Emancipated Housewife
Honest Toil
The Rewards of Virtue
XII. Places to Live
Totentanz
Metropolis
The Devil’s Deal
The Utopia of Tolerance
Closed Shop
Washington
Interlude in the Socratic Manner
San Francisco: A Memory
Boston
Philadelphia
XIII. The Writer in America
The National Letters
The Emperor of Wowsers
Transcendentalism
The Man of Letters
They Also Serve
Once More, with Feeling
XIV. The Novel
The Novel Defined
Second Chorus
On Realism
The Ultimate Realists
The Face Is Familiar
The Hero Problem
New England Twilight
XV. European Novelists
Jane Austen
Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson Again
The Father of Them All
Freudian Autopsy upon a Genius
H. G. Wells
Arnold Bennett
Somerset Maugham
Scherzo for the Bassoon
D. H. Lawrence
XVI. American Novelists
The Puritan Abroad
George Ade
James Branch Cabell
Not in French
Jack London
Dreiser as Philosopher
Dreiser as Stylist
Abraham Cahan
Mrs. Wharton
Disaster in Moronia
XVII. Playwrights and Poets
George Bernard Shaw
Ibsen the Trimmer
Edgar Lee Masters
Dichtung und Wahrheit
Walt Whitman
XVIII. The Critic’s Trade
The Pursuit of Ideas
The Cult of Hope
Cassandra’s Lament
Criticism of Criticism of Criticism
A Novel a Day
Meditation at Vespers
XIX. Present at the Creation
A Novel of the First Rank
Marginal Note
An American Novel
XX. Constructive Criticism
The Uplift as a Trade
A New Constitution for Maryland
Hooch for the Artist
Notice to Neglected Geniuses
XXI. Unfinished Business
Another Long-Awaited Book
Advice to Young Men
XXII. The Public Prints
The End of the Line
The Professional Man
Reflections on Journalism
The New York Sun
The Baltimore Sunpaper
The Pulitzer Prizes
The Muck-Rakers
Acres of Babble
XXIII. Professors
The Public-School
The War upon Intelligence
Katzenjammer
The Golden Age of Pedagogy
A Liberal Education
The Lower Depths
Pedagogues A-flutter
Prima Facie
The Philosopher
The Saving Grace
XXIV. Music
The Tone Art
The Joyless Master
De Profundis
Dvořák
Tschaikowsky
Russian Music
The Bryan of Bayreuth
Debussy and Wagner
XXV. The Pursuit of Happiness
Alcohol
The Great American Art
Night Club
The Peaceable Kingdom
The Home of the Crab
Hot Dogs
Reminiscence in the Present Tense
XXVI. Lesser Eminentoes
Portrait of an Immortal Soul
A Texas Schoolma’am
For Rotary and God
Flamingo in Blue Stockings
The Incomparable Bok
Dr. Townsend and His Plan
One Who Will Be Missed
The End of a Happy Life
XXVII. Ironies
Wild Shots
Between the Lines
The Fat Man
Sunday Afternoon
Interlude Sentimentale
Elegy in C Minor
The Jocose Gods
XXVIII. Nietzsche
The Bugaboo
Nietzsche on Christianity
XXIX. Credos
H. L. Mencken, by Himself
Salutatory
Further Exposition
An American Mercury Circular
Starting Point
Petition
XXX. Self-Portrait
The Man and His Shadow
Personal Record
The Tight-Rope
Categorical Imperatives
Behind the Mask
The Popinjay
Note for an Honest Autobiography
For the Defense
Coda
