H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken

Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis) (1880–1956), U.S. journalist and author, caustic critic of U.S. society and literature. He wrote for the Baltimore Sun and founded and edited the American Mercury (1924). His collected essays appeared in Prejudices (6 vols., 1919–27). Among other works, he also wrote an authoritative study, The American Language (1919).