Selected Works of H.L. Mencken. [George Bernard Shaw: His Plays, The Artist: A Drama without Words, A Book of Burlesques, A Little Book in C Major, A Book of Prefaces, Damn! A Book of Calumny, In Defense of Women, The American Language, Treatise on the Gods.

MENCKEN, H.L.

Item Number: 140641

Various Publishers: New York, Boston, and London, 1905-1930.

Fine first edition collection of the selected works of H.L. Mencken. Octavo, 9 volumes, original cloth. The collection includes first editions of George Bernard Shaw: His Plays [Boston and London: John W. Luce & Co., 1905], The Artist: A Drama without Words [Boston: John W. Luce & Co., 1912], A Book of Burlesques [New York: John Lane Co., 1916], A Little Book in C Major [New York: John Lane Co., 1916], A Book of Prefaces [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917], Damn! A Book of Calumny [New York: Philip Goodman Co., 1918], In Defense of Women [New York: Knopf, 1918], The American Language [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919], Treatise on the Gods [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, March 1930]. Each volume is in near fine condition and housed in a custom half morocco and folding chemise slipcase.

American journalist and essayist Henry Louis Mencken "was unquestionably the most provocative and influential journalist and cultural critic in twentieth-century America," Edmund Wilson wrote, “Mencken’s mind... has all the courage in the world in a country where courage is rare.” That courage may sometimes have been coupled with an inflexible stubbornness that led him into positions hard to defend. But to succeeding generations of writers and readers, Mencken was the figure who had risked charges of heresy and sedition and almost single-handedly brought America into a new cultural era. To read him is to be plunged into an era whose culture wars were easily as ferocious as those of our own day, in the company of a critic of vast curiosity and vivacious frankness.