Happy Days: Mencken's Autobiography: 1880-1892 (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) (Volume 1) [Paperback]

H. L. Mencken (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2006 | Series: Maryland Paperback Bookshelf

With a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Henry Louis Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. Now, fifty years after Mencken’s death, the Johns Hopkins University Press announces The Buncombe Collection, newly packaged editions of nine Mencken classics: Happy Days, Heathen Days, Newspaper Days, Prejudices, Treatise on the Gods, On Politics, Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work, Minority Report, and A Second Mencken Chrestomathy.

Most of these autobiographical writings first appeared in the New Yorker. Here Mencken recalls memories of a safe and happy boyhood in the Baltimore of the 1880s.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A book to be read twice a year by young and old, as long as life lasts." -- Atlantic

"A chronicle of childhood for which truth and a sense of balance have long been clamoring. To say it is a readable book is an impertinence in the case of Mr. Mencken." -- New York Times

"Probably no man alive more guilelessly enjoys hearing himself talk on paper, or is better able to infect others with the pleasure, than Henry Louis Mencken... Good old Mencken bravura at its brassiest. For all its mannerisms and unsubtlties the Mencken vernacular is extraordinarily vigorous and fine." -- Time

"The basis of the book's delight is that the Baltimore of the days when Cleveland was president and soft crabs sold for two and a fraction cents a piece... is miraculously seen again through the eyes of a secure young savage of the more fortunate bourgeoisie." -- Saturday Review

"Happy Days enjoys a throne of honors atop that vaunted heap of letters... Gleeful, doxological passages on the glories of an uncomplicated young life crowd this first volume." -- Brendan O'Donnell, Ex Libris

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

With a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Henry Louis Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. Now, fifty years after Mencken’s death, the Johns Hopkins University Press announces The Buncombe Collection, newly packaged editions of nine Mencken classics: Happy Days, Heathen Days, Newspaper Days, Prejudices, Treatise on the Gods, On Politics, Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work, Minority Report, and A Second Mencken Chrestomathy.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (August 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801885310
• ISBN-13: 978-0801885310
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,586,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mencken on his nonage, January 10, 2000

By 

Spuds McGee (North Dakota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Days: Mencken's Autobiography: 1880-1892 (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) (Paperback)

H.L. Mencken temporarily resigned from his job as a newspaper columnist before the Second World War, deeming his political opinions too controversial for print. In the ensuing interregnal period, he focused his attention on writing a series of memoirs, which later turned into a three volume autobiography, of which Happy Days is the first part. In its pages, he relates his early fascination with police officers, food, literature and pedagogues, subjects that forever interested him. He also, astonishingly, recounts successful athletic exploits (astonishing because he grew into a rotund and stumpy man, who considered sports "nonsensical"). Readers familiar with Mencken's caustic columns will enjoy learning how his strong opinions were formed. Readers unfamiliar with him should still find this book highly palatable, for it is colorfully written, interfusing "the language of the free lunch counter" with latin phrases and searing adjectives. This memoir is as well-written as later newspaper columnist Russell Baker's "Growing Up," but is a hell of a lot funnier.