Three Early Works

H.L. Mencken presents master styling in A Book of Prefaces (1917), Damn! (1918), and The American Credo (1920). Prefaces is a book of literary criticism containing the essays “Joseph Conrad,” “Theodore Dreiser,” “James Huneker,” and “Puritanism as a Literary Force.” He hoped that “they may at least blow a wind through the prevailing fogs, and reveal what is sound and important in some first-rate books.” The ensuing intellectual battle energized a generation. Damn! A Book of Calumny contains some of Mencken’s wittier turns in its 49 short essays. It has been mined for anthologies, but it has never before been reprinted as a whole. The American Credo: A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind contains 488 articles, co-written by drama critic George Jean Nathan, about American popular belief.


Bill Bonner, the founder and president of Agora Publishing, introduces the Laissez Faire edition, with a new preface by Laissez Faire Senior Editor Douglas E. French.