H.L. Mencken

H.L. Mencken

Author: Vincent Fitzpatrick

Publisher: Mercer University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780865549210

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Over a career that spanned half of a century, Henry Louis Mencken published more than 10 million words. More than a million were written about him, many of which, Mencken liked to remark, were highly condemnatory. He was called, with good reason, the most powerful private citizen in America during the 1920s.This lively introduction to Mencken's life and work begins with a concise biographical portrait before proceeding to a consideration of the five major periods of the renowned Baltimorean's career: his literary apprenticeship; the growth of his national reputation; his fame and unprecedented popularity during the 1920s (when college students would flash the Paris-green cover of the American Mercury as a badge of sophistication); the decline of his reputation during the Depression; and his renewed popularity during the 1940s, with the publication of his autobiographical trilogy, the Days books. In discussing this varied career, Vincent Fitzpatrick touches upon all the roles that Mencken played: journalist; editor; redoubtable critic of literature, culture, and politics; philologist; and autobiographer. Drawing upon Mencken's extensive correspondence of more than 100,000 letters, the book stresses his unflagging belief in the need for free speech (up to the limits of common decency). Indeed, in the end Mencken proved a significant American civil libertarian.Iconoclast, critic, satirist, "individualist," H. L. Mencken offered unique insights into American life. His lifelong celebration of the freedom to dissent marks his most enduring contribution to a nation that gave him such a wealth of material and so much delight.


The Beautiful and Damned

The Beautiful and Damned

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-06-23

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 019259690X

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'The victor belongs to the spoils.' F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), is a devastating portrait of a generation of wealthy young Americans who struggle to find meaning and happiness in their lives. The sophisticated but emotionally fragile Anthony Patch enjoys an initially idyllic marriage to the beautiful Gloria Gilbert. But their intense romance turns sour as they waste their time and energy in decadent leisure and luxury. Their happiness comes to depend on gaining a vast inheritance from Anthony's grandfather, but they are stifled by their inner fears and are ill-prepared for the inevitable loss of youth and prosperity. Set amid the vibrant social and commercial world of New York in the early twentieth century, the novel expresses the promise and disillusionment of America at the start of the Jazz Age. This is the novel that confirmed Fitzgerald's status as the most celebrated young American writer of the Twenties. The author's exuberant and enchanting style is on full display, three years before the critical triumph of The Great Gatsby. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


The Beautiful and Damned

The Beautiful and Damned

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-06-23

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0198854668

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'The victor belongs to the spoils.' F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), is a devastating portrait of a generation of wealthy young Americans who struggle to find meaning and happiness in their lives. The sophisticated but emotionally fragile Anthony Patch enjoys an initially idyllic marriage to the beautiful Gloria Gilbert. But their intense romance turns sour as they waste their time and energy in decadent leisure and luxury. Their happiness comes to depend on gaining a vast inheritance from Anthony's grandfather, but they are stifled by their inner fears and are ill-prepared for the inevitable loss of youth and prosperity. Set amid the vibrant social and commercial world of New York in the early twentieth century, the novel expresses the promise and disillusionment of America at the start of the Jazz Age. This is the novel that confirmed Fitzgerald's status as the most celebrated young American writer of the Twenties. The author's exuberant and enchanting style is on full display, three years before the critical triumph of The Great Gatsby. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


Interpreting Child Sacrifice Narratives

Interpreting Child Sacrifice Narratives

Author: Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-03-23

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1350236748

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Examining the theme of child sacrifice as a psychological challenge, this book applies a unique approach to religious ideas by looking at beliefs and practices that are considered deviant, but also make up part of mainstream religious discourse in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Ancient religious mythology, which survives through living traditions and transmitted narratives, rituals, and writings, is filled with violent stories, often involving the targeting of children as ritual victims. Christianity offers Abraham's sacrifice and assures us that the “only begotten son” has died, and then been resurrected. This version of the sacrifice myth has dominated the West. It is celebrated in an act of fantasy cannibalism, in which the believers share the divine son's flesh and blood. This book makes the connection between Satanism stories in the 1980s, the Blood Libel in Europe, The Eucharist, and Eastern Mediterranean narratives of child sacrifice.


Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920-1944

Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920-1944

Author: John T. Kneebone

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-06-15

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 146964410X

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Before the Civil Rights movement, southern liberal journalists played a crucial role in shaping southern thought on race and racism. John Kneebone presents a richly detailed intellectual history of southern racial liberalism between World War I and World War II by examining the works of five leading southern journalists -- Gerald W. Johnson, Baltimore Evening Sun; George Fort Milton, Chattanooga News; Virginius Dabney, Richmond Times-Dispatch; Hodding Carter, Greenville (Miss.) Delta Democrat-Times; and Ralph McGill, Atlanta Constitution. The South's leading liberal journalists came from varied backgrounds and lived in different regions of the South, but all had one characteristic in common: as public advocates of southern liberalism, each spoke as a southerner with deep roots in the southern past. Yet their editorials were not intended solely for local audiences; they wrote essays for national and regional journals of opinion as well, and each of these men published important books on the South and its history. Through their writings, they gained reputations throughout the country as articulate spokesmen for southern liberalism. Their essays, editorials, books, and letters provide rich and abundant sources for studying the changing patterns of southern liberal thought in the critical years from the 1920s to the 1940s. Moreover, these journalists were members of southern liberal organizations -- Will W. Alexander's Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching, the Southern Policy Committee, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, and the Southern Regional Council -- and so they helped devise the reform programs that they in turn publicized. While they believed that social and economic change in the modern South required reform of race relations, the journalists felt that these reforms could be accommodated within the framework of racial segregation. The protests of blacks against segregation during World War II challenged that way of thinking and created a crisis for southern liberals. Kneebone analyzes this crisis and the disconnection between the southern liberalism of the 1920s and 1930s and the Civil Rights movement. Originally published in 1985. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.