In this phenomenal C-SPAN program, noted guests examined the life and career of journalist H. L. Mencken. He became a reporter for the Baltimore Morning Herald and later joined the Baltimore Sun. He eventually became one of the most influential voices in American literature and was often critical of what he perceived as American cant, buffoonery and political chicanery. He often railed against pretension, provincialism, prudery, organized religion, and Middle Class conformism. By the 1930s in opposition to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, his strong libertarian opinions led him to be a prominent leader of the Old Right. In The American Language, which was revised several times, he chronicled American expressions and idioms. One of Mencken’s greatest admirers, the great Murray N. Rothbard, wrote the definitive portrait of the Sage of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian. For five decades Mencken has been my favorite writer and I am extremely fortunate and distinctly proud to have many first editions of his multiple works in my personal library.

The program was telecast from Union Square in Baltimore, the site of his family home.

The Best of Charles Burris