A Taste of Yardley

Readers unfamiliar with the work of Jonathan Yardley, a book reviewer for the Washington Post, may get a sense of his approach and style from the following reviews:

Der Tag (Mencken Day), September 11, 2010

Mencken Day 2010 will commence at 10:00 AM on September 11, 2010 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St, Baltimore,MD. The Mencken Society’s Annual Meeting begins at 10:30 in the Wheeler Auditorium.

The Society’s speakers (in the morning) are Marion Rodgers, who will speak on her recent (hot off the presses) two-volume set of Mencken’s Prejudices, published by the Library of America, and David Donovan of the Enoch Pratt Free Library who has done heroic work in exhuming the entombed collection of Saturday Night Club material held by the Library. He will play selections from a recording of the Concert Artists of Baltimore’s concert, “A Saturday Night Club on Sunday Afternoon”, held April 11, 2010. If you missed the concert, here is your chance to at least get a taste of what was.

The Mencken Memorial speaker (in the afternoon) is Jonathan Yardley, book reviewer for the Washington Post and editor of Mencken’s My Life as Author and Editor (Knopf, 1993). He will speak on “The Press Then and Now: From Mencken to the Internet.”

Mencken: Prejudices

Marion Rodgers, the Queen of Mencken scholars, has produced another must-have work for Menckenphiles. Published by the Library of America (LOA), H. L. Mencken: Prejudices: The Complete Series comes as a two-volume boxed set and contains the entire contents of the six Prejudices books which were published from 1919 to 1927. Volume One contains Series One (1919), Two (1920) and Three (1922) and Volume Two contains Series Four (1924), Five (1926) and Six (1927).

For those wanting a bird’s eye of the Prejudices, Vince Fitzpatrick gives a good overview in chapters three (at the end) and four of his H. L. Mencken (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004) as does Marion, though more briefly, in her interview with Rich Kelley (pdf) for The Library of America.

Though full versions of the First, Second, and Third Series are availabe for download from Google Books, they do not contain the extensive annotations, over one hundred pages for the two volumes of the LOA edition, provided by Marion.

The Mencken E-Library

The internet has made the cost of publication trivial to the point that it may be regarded as cost-free. It has long been practical to broadcast items which, in earlier times, would have to be issued as expensive limited-edition works or not at all, as the cost of reaching potential purchasers, diffusley scattered world-wide, would greatly exceed any profit to be made from publication.

We take advantage of this technology to bring to Menckenphiles works by and about Mr Mencken which would otherwise be difficult, inconvenient or expensive to obtain for most of Mankind’s knowledge is still preserved on paper, papyrus and animal skins. We shall free information from its entombment in physical media and release it into the digital electronic world. We will collect textual, pictorial, and aural material relating to Mr Mencken, his work, and his times and make them conveniently available in an on-line digital library we grandly call The Mencken E-Library.

We inaugurate the The Mencken E-Library with an item on the infamous song, “I am a One Hundred Percent American”. We will be adding more material to the Library.

New Book by S.T. Joshi

H. L. Mencken; S. T. Joshi, Editor
Mencken on Mencken: A New Collection of Autobiographical Writings
Louisiana State University Press, 2010
296 pages, 6 in x 9 in

S. T. has assembled forty-four autobiographical pieces by HLM that have not previously appeared in books and has provided annotations and a glossary.

H.L. Mencken: An Annotated Bibliography

S. T. Joshi’s H.L. Mencken An Annotated Bibliography is available from Scarecrow press.

	The Mencken Society Home Page Honoring the memory of and promoting the reading of the living works of Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12—1956-01-29), the “Sage of Baltimore”, American author, critic, newspaper man and iconoclast. “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”—“Epitaph”, Smart Set, 1921-12-03, p. 33
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	Mencken Discussion Board Mencken E-Library A Taste of Yardley Readers unfamiliar with the work of Jonathan Yardley, a book reviewer for the Washington Post, may get a sense of his approach and style from the following reviews: Review of S. T. Joshi’s Mencken on Mencken: A New Collection of Autobiographical Writings “Second Reading: Mencken’s Paean to Ink-Stained Wretches [Newspaper Days]” “J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly” “Tragedy Of Manners [John O’Hara]” Der Tag (Mencken Day), September 11, 2010 Mencken Day 2010 will commence at 10:00 AM on September 11, 2010 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St, Baltimore,MD. The Mencken Society’s Annual Meeting begins at 10:30 in the Wheeler Auditorium. The Society’s speakers (in the morning) are Marion Rodgers, who will speak on her recent (hot off the presses) two-volume set of Mencken’s Prejudices, published by the Library of America, and David Donovan of the Enoch Pratt Free Library who has done heroic work in exhuming the entombed collection of Saturday Night Club material held by the Library. He will play selections from a recording of the Concert Artists of Baltimore’s concert, “A Saturday Night Club on Sunday Afternoon”, held April 11, 2010. If you missed the concert, here is your chance to at least get a taste of what was. The Mencken Memorial speaker (in the afternoon) is Jonathan Yardley, book reviewer for the Washington Post and editor of Mencken’s My Life as Author and Editor (Knopf, 1993). He will speak on “The Press Then and Now: From Mencken to the Internet.” Mencken: Prejudices Marion Rodgers, the Queen of Mencken scholars, has produced another must-have work for Menckenphiles. Published by the Library of America (LOA), H. L. Mencken: Prejudices: The Complete Series comes as a two-volume boxed set and contains the entire contents of the six Prejudices books which were published from 1919 to 1927. Volume One contains Series One (1919), Two (1920) and Three (1922) and Volume Two contains Series Four (1924), Five (1926) and Six (1927). For those wanting a bird’s eye of the Prejudices, Vince Fitzpatrick gives a good overview in chapters three (at the end) and four of his H. L. Mencken (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004) as does Marion, though more briefly, in her interview with Rich Kelley (pdf) for The Library of America. Though full versions of the First, Second, and Third Series are availabe for download from Google Books, they do not contain the extensive annotations, over one hundred pages for the two volumes of the LOA edition, provided by Marion. The Mencken E-Library The internet has made the cost of publication trivial to the point that it may be regarded as cost-free. It has long been practical to broadcast items which, in earlier times, would have to be issued as expensive limited-edition works or not at all, as the cost of reaching potential purchasers, diffusley scattered world-wide, would greatly exceed any profit to be made from publication. We take advantage of this technology to bring to Menckenphiles works by and about Mr Mencken which would otherwise be difficult, inconvenient or expensive to obtain for most of Mankind’s knowledge is still preserved on paper, papyrus and animal skins. We shall free information from its entombment in physical media and release it into the digital electronic world. We will collect textual, pictorial, and aural material relating to Mr Mencken, his work, and his times and make them conveniently available in an on-line digital library we grandly call The Mencken E-Library. We inaugurate the The Mencken E-Library with an item on the infamous song, “I am a One Hundred Percent American”. We will be adding more material to the Library. New Book by S.T. Joshi H. L. Mencken; S. T. Joshi, Editor Mencken on Mencken: A New Collection of Autobiographical Writings Louisiana State University Press, 2010 296 pages, 6 in x 9 in S. T. has assembled forty-four autobiographical pieces by HLM that have not previously appeared in books and has provided annotations and a glossary. H.L. Mencken: An Annotated Bibliography S. T. Joshi’s H.L. Mencken An Annotated Bibliography is available from Scarecrow press.
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