Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Kindle
$5.99

Available instantly

Hardcover
$35.06

$35.06 with 7 percent savings

List Price: $37.50

FREE Returns

FREE delivery Monday, June 3

Select delivery location

Only 14 left in stock - order soon.

$$35.06 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

30-day easy returns

Returns

30-day easy returns

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

$16.80

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Monday, June 3 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$35.06 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Sold by adam72 and Fulfilled by Amazon.

H. L. Mencken: Prejudices Vol. 1 (LOA #206): First, Second, and Third Series (Library of America H. L. Mencken Edition) Hardcover – September 2, 2010

by H. L. Mencken (Author), Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (Editor)

4.7 23 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$35.06","priceAmount":35.06,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"35","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"06","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"AP3Ok7AP%2BDlp%2FAFCcqtF35F2eOeZYjtb4WEPAFaXGlxlrwYENkWDzVsDfa3Mi90HWHMAYFPSTjYSS%2BUrqErpJW5mN%2BbCXI51GysRUvAG5%2B6fkUx8OSC6OKHqITXHFR6ADTxjGtR%2BoPQ%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$16.80","priceAmount":16.80,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"16","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"80","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"AP3Ok7AP%2BDlp%2FAFCcqtF35F2eOeZYjtbZB3WG7OpucnMRBzpMRWhAKT%2FvJBrlak8IYk7dd8%2Bmr4iiT5UxfMf4GhqmdA%2FsIbSlY31SW8pAFi64x17d6J9XqTGhjDYI6nLyn9bVsEjLhJ4IPAuV9JuDDfzHFyA9ZGwAxh20Vpbw3O%2FSRQN9OLVC%2BHyhVTMW7Xt","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

H. L. Mencken was unquestionably the most provocative and influential journalist and cultural critic in twentieth-century America. The six volumes of Prejudices, published between 1919 and 1927, were both a slashing attack on what Mencken saw as American provincialism and hypocrisy and a resounding defense of the writers and thinkers he thought of as harbingers of a new frankness and maturity. Laced with savage humor and delighting in verbal play, Mencken’s prose remains a one-of-a-kind roller-coaster ride through a staggering range of themes: literature and journalism, politics and religion, sex and marriage, food and drink.

In this and a companion volume, The Library of America presents all six series of Prejudices in their original form. The first three series include some of his most famous writing, including “The Sahara of the Bozart,” an attack on Southern culture so unbridled as to earn him widespread criticism from politicians and the press; “The National Letters,” a lively and free-spoken survey of writing in America; “The Dry Millennium,” an analysis of the multiple absurdities of Prohibition; “Exeunt Omnes,” an unblinking and deromanticized contemplation of death; and “On Being an American,” a humorous celebration of the political and cultural panorama that he saw as “incomparably the greatest show on earth.” Here are his harsh summing-up of Theodore Roosevelt’s career (“he didn’t believe in democracy; he believed simply in government”) and his sympathetic portraits of literary friends like James Huneker and George Jean Nathan. Mencken’s account of the original reception of Prejudices, from his memoir My Life as Editor and Author, is included as an appendix.

Edmund Wilson wrote: “Mencken’s mind . . . has all the courage in the world in a country where courage is rare.” That courage may sometimes have been coupled with an inflexible stubbornness that led him into positions hard to defend. But to succeeding generations of writers and readers, Mencken was the figure who had risked charges of heresy and sedition and almost single-handedly brought America into a new cultural era. To read him is to be plunged into an era whose culture wars were easily as ferocious as those of our own day, in the company of a critic of vast curiosity and vivacious frankness.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

23 global ratings

2 star

1 star

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Seasoned Citizen

Great author & book.

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2022

Verified Purchase

It is an interesting book.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

David

A true literary genius

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

A true honor to experience the early twentieth century they the eyes of a writer with amazing wit and perspective

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Clint Coffee

A Collection of Worthy Ideals

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2012

Mencken calls for people to follow the logic of ideas to their end, regardless of any social constraints that may give them pause. He follows this advice. He writes in a brutally frank and often hilarious style, and he sales his own thoughts by grouping them into generalities his audience will connect with.

I found it necessary to keep a dictionary nearby, as Mencken uses words I've never heard of. Most of these words were spot-on, even when you could guess their meanings in context, their denotations fit his sentences perfectly. I skipped a lot of the negative reviews of authors I didn't already know because I wanted to find other books I'd want to read, not waste my time on ones I never would've read anyways. "The Genealogy of Etiquette," "The Ulster Polonius," "The Dismal Science," and "Advice to Young Men" were my favorite articles in Prejudices 1-3.

It's worth the read.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael Stoner

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

Great transaction, great book.

Helpful

retiredsgt

Mencken's Prejudices: The First, Second and Third Series

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

Mencken at his best!!! A "MUST HAVE" if you enjoy Mencken!

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Great Faulkner's Ghost

Charm and Wit

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2011

Mencken was a cultural critic at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States between 1917 to 1926. Mencken criticized what he felt to be American provincialism and hypocrisy, and defended writers and thinkers he saw as forerunners of a new truthfulness and maturity. Full of savage wit and relishing wordplay, Mencken's style remains a unique tour over a vast thematic territory: literature and journalism, politics, sex and marriage, food and drink, art, the absurdities of Prohibition and the dismal state of American higher education, and the relative merits of Baltimore and New York. He addressed issues to Americans of the day, the Communists and leftist, conservatives and fascists. He went after the authors that he felt unworthy of praise, yet he attacked with such spirit and charm that is rare today.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

ago32

un Voltaire americano

Reviewed in Italy on February 10, 2017

Verified Purchase

Non lo conoscevo, notevole. Sempre ferocemente critico, reazionario, a tratti piuttosto bieco, sempre antidemocratico però sempre divertente. Allegramente cinico (" cinico è uno che sentendo profumo di fiori cerca la bara"), a tratti esaltando le capacità delle donne rispetto alla pochezza dei maschi (In Defense of Women), a volte misogino ( però si sposa e la morte della moglie è per lui un colpo durissimo). Comunque vale la pena di leggerlo. Almeno A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing.

Translate review to English

See more reviews

Return this item for free

Return this item for free

Follow the author

Image Unavailable