H.L. Mencken Collection

These early versions of H.L. Mencken's books exist in the form of manuscripts, typescripts, revised typescripts, galley proofs, and page proofs. Not all works survive in every state of publication but there is a wide representation of Mencken’s thought as it moves toward a finished work.

Notable volumes include "The American Language" (20 volumes), Mencken’s Autobiographical Trilogy ("Days of Innocence"), "Heliogabalus", "Menckeniana: A Schimpflexikon" (This title means “A Collection of Abuse.), "Prejudices", and "Treatise on the Gods."

Mencken as a Creative Writer

As a young man, before deciding that his talent lay in prose nonfiction, Mencken tried his hand at different kinds of writing, including an attempted novel set in Elizabethan England.

The Collection contains volumes of manuscripts and published materials from Mencken’s time as a short story writer, poet and dramatist. Notable volumes include Short Stories(1900–1906), Early Fiction Typescripts (1889–1903), published material in such magazines as Redbook Magazine, Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, The Bookman, and Short Stories, Poetry (1895), and Attempts at Plays (1909–1920).

Magazines

Mencken’s earliest magazine material dates from 1899. He began writing book reviews for The Smart Set in 1908, became co-editor in 1914, and continued until December 1923. Mencken began The American Mercury in January 1924 as co-editor, became sole editor in 1925, and remained until December 1933. This Collection holds manuscript materials and clippings from The Smart Set and The American Mercury as well as articles from other national publications such as The New Yorker, Esquire, The Nation, The New Republic, and Vanity Fair. Notable volumes include:

• The Smart Set (complete run during Mencken’s co-editorship)
  • "Monthly Book Reviews" (November 1908–December 1923)
• The American Mercury (complete run during Mencken’s co-editorship and editorship)
  • "Book Reviews"
  • "Editorials"
  • “The Hatrack Case” (9 volumes, including the legal documents generated by the case)
    • Herbert Asbury’s story, named for an angular prostitute, appeared in the April 1926 American Mercury. It was attacked by the Boston Watch and Ward Society and proved to be the most important censorship case in Mencken’s career as a magazine editor.
• Miscellaneous magazine articles (16 volumes, including scrapbook material and newspaper articles)

Newspapers

Perhaps Mencken’s most important work was as a journalist. It is certainly how he saw himself and how his name came to be known nationally. He wrote famously about the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee during the summer of 1925. This Collection contains clippings, dispatches, and revised typescripts from Mencken's long career as a newspaperman. Notable volumes include:

• Baltimore Herald (Evening, Morning and Sunday editions, 1899–1906)
• Baltimore Evening News (June–July 1906)
• Baltimore Sun (1906–November 9, 1948, intermittent. Mencken’s last column was published on November 9, 1948. He suffered his debilitating stroke exactly two weeks later)
  • “A Proposed New Constitution for Maryland” (April 12, 1937)
• Baltimore Evening Sun (April 18, 1910–1948, intermittent)
  • “The Free Lance” (4 volumes) a daily appearing from 1911–1915. This was Mencken’s most important daily column.
  • Monday Articles (15 volumes) Mencken’s most important weekly column ran from 1920–1938.
  • Editorials and other writings.
  • Campaign and Convention Coverage (4 volumes). Mencken covered his first convention in St. Louis in 1904 and his final in Philadelphia in 1948. He did not cover every campaign or convention in between.
  • Series on Hopkins Hospital (1937); University of Maryland (1938)
• New York Evening Mail (1917–1918, containing two of Mencken’s most famous columns)
  • “The Sahara of the Bozart” (November 13, 1917) attacks what Mencken viewed as the cultural sterility of the American South.
  • “A Neglected Anniversary” (December 28, 1917) Mencken’s fabricated history of the bathtub. To this day it is sometimes reported as fact.
• New York American (1934–1936)
• Two volumes covering Mencken’s 1917 trip to Germany as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and Evening Sun.
  • “Berlin February 1917”
  • “Germany 1917” (scrapbook)

This collection contains comprehensive lists of Mencken's published works, including first American editions of Books by H.L. Mencken, a list of his Contributions to Books, a list of published collections of Mencken’s Correspondence, and a selection of Pamphlets.

H. L. Mencken began to subscribe to a clipping service in 1903, when he was twenty-three years old. This service collected all mentions of Mencken's name in newspapers and magazines. This is a wealth of well-organized material that greatly facilitates research, and covers over 110 years. View a PDF list of the full scrapbook inventory, including volume numbers and dates.

This collection has grown to 170 volumes, is arranged chronologically, and contains commentary on Mencken’s life and work including coverage of the Scopes Trial in 1925, his battle against censorship during the “Hatrack Case” in 1926, and his marriage in 1935 to Sara Haardt, which received national press coverage.

H.L. Mencken wrote well over 100,000 letters and, like his other writing, his correspondence ranged across many subjects. He discussed government and the law, philology and economics, politics (local, regional, national, and international), literature and music, and food and drink. A complete list of correspondents is in the Mencken Collection. A small selection of letters is also available in the H.L. Mencken Collection on Digital Maryland.

Personal Correspondence

Mencken had a wide range of contacts across Maryland. He wrote to authors, judges, senators, governors, physicians and artists, among others. The collection includes correspondence with A. Aubrey Bodine, Dr. Louis Cheslock, Gerald W. Johnson, Governor William P. Lane, Governor Theodore McKeldin, Judge Eugene O'Dunne, Governor Albert Ritchie, Walter Sondheim, and Senator Millard E. Tydings.

A large collection of Mencken's correspondence with non-Marylanders is in the New York Public Library, but this collection has letters from Theodore Dreiser, long-time love Marion Bloom, the poet George Sterling, and many others. The collection includes correspondence with Marquis Childs, William Feather, Edgar Kemler, Joseph Wood Krutch, Clare Leighton, George Sterling, Dorothy Taylor, Anthony Turano, and Burton Rascoe.

Additional Correspondence

• Alfred A. Knopf Correspondence: Knopf was Mencken's longtime publisher and good friend. This is a large collection that covers both their personal friendship as well as the business of two of the most powerful literary figures of the period. Covers the years 1919–1956.
• August Mencken Correspondence: H.L. Mencken's brother August was the youngest of the four Mencken siblings and was a successful engineer as well as editor and author. After H. L. Mencken's stroke in 1948, August retired to care for his brother full-time. This is an extensive collection that often references his brother.
• Mencken Family Correspondence: The Menckens were a close-knit family who corresponded frequently. This collection also includes postcards from family members.

This collection holds materials related to the Mencken family including books, memorabilia, family and genealogical documents, and an extensive photographic record of his life. The collection preserves family and business documents, such as he records of his father’s tobacco firm, family pictures, including several valuable portfolios of Mencken portraits and personal photos, and scrapbooks made by Mencken (particularly his Souvenirs of Childhood and Schooldays, 1880–1896), his wife Sara, and his brother August and his family.

The Family collection also contains copies of books authored by members of the Mencken family, from the works of German scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries to members of Mencken’s immediate family.

Mencken was among the most well-known and powerful literary critics of his day and he built a large personal library. As a critic, Mencken championed the likes of Theodore Dreiser and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and among the collection’s many treasures are presentation copies inscribed to Mencken and signed by many authors, including Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Many volumes contained lively and highly personal inscriptions which, together with other letters of literary correspondence Mencken attached to individual volumes, have been removed for safety and preservation. 

The collection also contains copies of books, pamphlets, and various biographical and critical works about Mencken’s life and work. These volumes were purchased by the library after his death. The collection continues to grow as more is written about H.L. Mencken. 

Menckeniana was an annual magazine devoted to the life and works of H.L. Mencken. It included stories, reminiscences, and scholarly articles about Mencken, and occasionally published some of his previously unpublished work. The final issue was published in December 2022. 

Read Menckeniana through JSTOR. Free access to JSTOR is available with your Pratt Library Card.