Skip to content

Historically famous critics

H. L. Mencken

1880-1956 · American · 20th century

Acid-tongued American journalist who ridiculed religion, democracy, and middle-class piety

Known as the Sage of Baltimore, Mencken jeered at American sham, pretension, provincialism, and prudery in prose so vivid it reshaped the nation’s fiction in the 1920s. He derided nearly everything American, from government and religion to the courts and the middle class he dubbed the booboisie, and his coverage of the Scopes trial turned his contempt for fundamentalism into a national spectacle. He belongs in a hall of fame of criticism because he made irreverence itself a serious intellectual weapon against cant and conformity.

Essays to read on AltWoke

138 essays, full text, free. Grouped by the collection they appeared in.

Wrote against

  • organized religion
  • fundamentalism
  • American democracy
  • puritanism and prudery
  • middle-class conformity
  • business culture
  • provincialism
  • government

Books

Complete bibliography. Public-domain titles link to the full text; others link out to read, borrow, or buy.

Sources

← Back to Famous Critics