Black Mask was a pulp magazine launched in 1920 by journalist H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan as one of a number of money-making publishing ventures to support the prestigious literary magazine The Smart Set, which Mencken edited, and which operated at a loss.

After eight issues, Mencken and Nathan considered their initial $ 500 investment to have been sufficiently profitable, and they sold the magazine to its publishers, Eltinge Warner and Eugene Crow for $ 12, 500.

In the same year, he became H. L. Mencken's chosen successor as editor of the literary magazine, The American Mercury, which Mencken had founded with George Jean Nathan.

Loos had become a devoted admirer of H. L. Mencken and when he was in New York, she would take a break from her " Tuesday Widows ", and join his circle which included Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Joseph Hergesheimer, essayist Ernest Boyd, and theater critic George Jean Nathan.

Mencken, George Jean Nathan, John Updike, and Knopf's own favorite, Willa Cather.

From 1924 to 1934, he published the famous literary magazine founded by Mencken and Nathan, The American Mercury.

* The American Mercury, a magazine founded in 1924 by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan

The rhythmic or musical quality of the phrase was referenced by H. L. Mencken in 1920, by professor David Allen Robertson in 1921, and by critic George Jean Nathan in 1935.

* Black Mask ( magazine ), a pulp magazine launched in 1920 by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan

It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan.

With their mutual book publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., serving as the publisher, Mencken and Nathan created The American Mercury as " a serious review, the gaudiest and damnedest ever seen in the Republic ," as Mencken explained the name ( derived from a 19th-century publication ) to his old friend and contributor, Theodore Dreiser:

And, from 1924 through 1933, Mencken — Nathan was forced to resign as his co-editor a year after the magazine was born — provided precisely what he promised: elegantly irreverent observations of America, aimed at what he called " Americans realistically ," those of sophisticated skepticism of enough that was popular and much that threatened to be.

Nathan provided theater criticism, and Mencken wrote the " Editorial Notes " and " The Library ," the last being book reviews and social critique, placed at the back of each volume.

Spivak even more than Palmer revived the Mercury for a brief but vigorous period — Mencken, Nathan, and Angoff themselves contributed essays to the magazine again.

Mencken and George Jean Nathan.

In 1923 Knopf also started publishing periodicals, beginning with The American Mercury, founded by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, which it published through 1934.

He had been, he wrote Mencken at once, `` in the country '', a euphemism for an experience that had not greatly changed him.

Mencken, spoke of Dreiser's relationship with communism as an " unimportant detail in his life ," Dreiser's biographer Jerome Loving notes that his political activities since the early 1930s had " clearly been in concert with ostensible communist aims with regard to the working class.

Mencken described the diary entry as a misreading of the author's self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind.

Mencken also quotes a story from the New York Herald Tribune in 1938 which reported that " one of the oldest police officers in New York said that he had heard ' on the lam ' thirty years ago.

Gilmore lists a number of people who influenced LaVey's writings: Ayn Rand, Friedrich Nietzsche, H. L. Mencken, the members of the carnival with whom LaVey had supposedly worked in his youth, P. T. Barnum, Mark Twain, John Milton, and Lord Byron.

Richard Lederer in Crazy English claims that H. L. Mencken had claimed in a 1940s poll that " cellar door " had been favored by a student from China.

In the case of Mencken, at least, Babbitt gave as good as he got ; he branded Mencken's writing as " intellectual vaudeville ", a criticism with which posterity has had some sympathy.

Mencken had criticized Puritanism for many years, famously characterizing it as " the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy ," but through World War I his criticism became increasingly outspoken, in part due to the rising tide of Prohibition.

Mencken supported women's rights, even if he had no affection for the suffragist.

He accordingly dedicated Figures of Earth to " six most gallant champions " who had rallied to Jurgens defence: Sinclair Lewis, Wilson Follett, Louis Untermeyer, H. L. Mencken, Hugh Walpole, and Joseph Hergesheimer.

By 1936, Palmer had continued the Mencken standard in its content but changed its appearance: It now had the same pocket size as Reader's Digest.

Fiske, a 1928 graduate of Cornell University, had worked for the Federal Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration ( WPA ) during the 1930s, had written for H. L. Mencken ’ s American Mercury, had corresponded with George Bernard Shaw, had written an article now considered a classic, " Bernard Shaw ’ s Debt to William Blake ", and had translated Shakespeare's Hamlet into Modern English.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra of the 19th century had floundered in 1899, was replaced by a new orchestra organized by the Florestan Club, which included author H. L. Mencken ; the Club ensured that the orchestra would be the first municipally funded company in the country.

Mencken ’ s The Smart Set magazine.

Mencken, bringing the literary magazine The Smart Set to prominence as an editor, and co-founding and editing The American Mercury.

In addition to his literary accomplishments, Mencken was known for his controversial ideas.

Other offerings: humorous sketches by Damon Runyon ; O. Henry stories ; editorials by Arthur Brisbane ; Ring Lardner letter ; " Rippling Rhymes ," by Walt Mason ; literary articles by H. L. Mencken.

Prominent literary figure H. L. Mencken was arrested in Boston in 1926 after purposefully selling a banned issue of his magazine, The American Mercury.

Mencken resigned as editor of his creation at the end of 1933, and his chosen successor was economist and literary critic Henry Hazlitt.

Mencken's diary describes Hergesheimer's frustration at the decline of his popularity and the lack of interest by his publishers, and according to one literary legend, when Hergesheimer asked why nobody was interested in his books anymore, Mencken replied, " I don't know, Joe.

His self-esteem was enhanced when H. L. Mencken, editor of the popular magazine, American Mercury, bought two of his stories, " Fool " and " Figures of Fighting Men.

Henry Louis " H. L ." Mencken ( September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956 ), was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English.

Primarily a magazine of satirical reporting and humor, but also featuring some more serious investigative journalism, the New York – based Spy traced its influences to " H. L. Mencken and A. J. Liebling and Wolcott Gibbs from the ' 20s, ' 30s, and ' 40s ; parody-Time-ese of the ' 40s and ' 50s ; New Journalism of the ' 60s and ' 70s ; Private Eye, the scabrous ( and much jokier ) British fortnightly ; and the ways we just happened to write ," as Andersen and Carter would later write in Spy: The Funny Years.

* " H. L. Mencken ", from < cite class =" magazine "> The New Republic </ cite > ( November 24, 1917 ).

At first, the magazine was seen as moving to the Left, but a year after Mencken's departure Knopf sold the Mercury to Paul A. Palmer, a former Mencken colleague at The Baltimore Sun.