Happy Days: 1880-1892

by H.L. Mencken and by H. L. Mencken

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801853389
• ISBN13: 9780801853388
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Mencken on his nonage

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.