I have read so many Mencken biographies lately that it is hard to keep them straight, but I enjoyed this one as much as any. I always think it offers an extra dimension if the biographer actually was acquainted with his subject. I learn something new from each biography.

I found it to be an interesting read for those interested in the life of H. L. Menken.

Probably more information than most anyone wants.

Journalist, editor, critic, comic, philologist, and typewriter tickler of incredible skill and extraordinary dexterity, H. L. Mencken may not have been the most serious newspaper writer in American history. But he was the most playful – and the most outrageous. His meteoric and cataclysmic career began at the turn of the Twentieth Century, rose to a dizzying zenith in the Roaring Twenties, and then continued to clatter and clang, to the delight of his readers, until a stroke silenced him in 1948.

Throughout his career, Mencken was a prolific writer who loved words and knew how to use them. His mammoth “The American Language” is a work of scholarship that is miraculously colorful and informative. But Mencken is at his liveliest – unabashedly bristling with life! – in his short, stinging, pungent pieces that poke fun, cajole, entertain, intrigue, interest, tickle, baffle, amuse, and enrage.

Fortunately for us, Mencken’s best writings are collected in numerous books with catchy titles such as “The Impossible H. L. Mencken”; “The Vintage Mencken”; “A Mencken Chrestomathy”; and the like. If you have never read Mencken, or never even heard of him, then you are in for a treat. Reading Mencken for the first time is electrifying. The reader’s nervous excitement upon discovering Mencken has been beautifully described by Richard Wright:

“That night, in my rented room, while letting the hot water run over my can of pork and beans in the sink, I opened [Mencken’s] ‘A Book of Prefaces’ and began to read. I was jarred and shocked by the style, the clear, clean sweeping sentences.”

Now, THAT is what it is like to read Mencken for the first time!

Come back for seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths, and the same thing will happen to you. You'll get jolted. There is an electricity, a momentum, a musicality – above all, a hilarity! – to Mencken's writing. As you read, you can hear him snicker and guffaw as he tappity, tap, taps his typewriter to the rhythm of words that fling themselves at the page.

They are still there. On the page. To this day. His words. Still. Still as death. Still running riot.

Mencken was an extremely intelligent man, a literary innovator, a superb stylist, a bold critic, an eccentric imagination, a unique persona, a wonder of the western world, a comic, a clown, and a writer of genius. His writing sparkles. It glitters. But it is not gold. It is a knife-edged stone skipping over smooth water on a sunny summer's day. Eye-catching? Yes. Eyebrow-raising? Indeed. Entertaining? That too. Profound? No. Not deep. Superficial. All public. Nothing private. Not the inner mind of one man alone, but the outside world of everybody and anybody. Witty he was. Wise he was not. More hotheaded than warmhearted. More cruel than kind. As a writer, immense. As a man, immature. The older I get, the less I like him. Even so, he still makes me laugh. I can't help it. Some of his writing is, to this day, uproariously funny. I like it. I do not like him. Not anymore anyway.

Mencken believed in all kinds of crazy things – ranging from Social Darwinism to the infallibility of the H. L. Mencken. So, why bother reading what he wrote; what was written about him; or both? The short answer is that Mencken was, and may still be, America's greatest humorist of the highbrow persuasion. His writing reads almost as well today, as it did a century ago, when a cry of "hot off the press" generated interest and excitement.

Mencken's life, on the other hand, was not nearly as interesting, as exciting, or as funny as his writing. How could it be! After all, Mencken did not live to live. He lived to write. He emptied his life into his writing. That made his writing lively, very lively indeed. But the story of his life is no page-turner. For, he had spent that life making himself what he was: a man of ink and paper, not flesh and blood.

But, hey, don't mind me. I don't know what I'm talking about. I never do. So, judge for yourself. If you really must have a Mencken biography, and you want a good read, you may enjoy William Manchester's “Disturber of the Peace”: book available on Amazon.com; audio-book available on Audible.com.

I have always enjoyed H. L. Mencken's wit and humor, so was very interested in finding out more about his life. William Manchester has written a wonderful biography of a man he knew pretty intimately in his last years.

Mencken's father died of a heart attack when he was quite young and he became the man of the house and took care of his mother until her death. She supported him in his efforts of journalism and he loved her very much.

Mencken is most famous for his patronage of authors like Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser. He wrote critiques of all their books and published several of their short stories in his various magazines.

He also was interested in the Scopes trial, in which he termed " the Monkey Trial". When the movie "Inherit the Wind" came out his character was played by Gene Kelly.

He married late in life to a Southern woman named Sarah Haardt whom he met when supporting women's right to vote. After a seven year courtship they were married and Sarah died five years later from tuberculosis. Mencken was devastated.

He lived a very interesting life and supported freedom and racial and women's rights before it was a popular thing to do. He also was a great supporter of Germany and had a hard time during the two World Wars.

Manchester has written a loving biography of a man he deeply admired. I enjoyed this book.

William Manchester is an excellent biographer. This is my favorite biography of Mencken. Similarly, Mr. Manchester's biography of General MacArthur, "American Caesar" is my favorite of the General.

H. L. Mencken was an icon of the 1920's. He writing is full of irony. I think that one can become misled by his message if one reads his work at a superficial level. In addition to being very illuminating about the life of H. L. Mencken in general, Mr. Manchester's biography has really helped me understand and appreciate the writings of Mr. Mencken. Thank You...