Do You Remember?: The Whimsical Letters of H. L. Mencken and Philip Goodman - Hardcover

Mencken, Professor H L

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0938420577 ISBN 13: 9780938420576

Publisher: Maryland Historical Society, 1996

Synopsis

In 1918, while Henry Louis Mencken was editing The Smart Set in New York and working on The American Language in his native Baltimore, his best friend, Philip Goodman, a New York advertising man, bon vivant, and fledgling publisher, wrote a letter "reminiscing" about their old German-American neighborhood in the 1880s and 1890s. He invented characters and events and wrote with irony and affection for those better times. Mencken rose instantly to the challenge and wrote a letter in similar vein. For three years the correspondents tried to out-do each other in telling tall stories. Sanders has reconstructed and annotated this correspondence.

About this title

From the Publisher

In 1918, Henry Louis Mencken was editing The Smart Set in New York, to which he traveled weekly, and working on The American Language in his native Baltimore. Philip Goodman, a New York advertising man, bon vivant, and fledgling publisher, later to be a Broadway impresario, became Mencken's closest friend. Knowing Mencken was depressed about the German-American community in the aftermath of the First World War, Goodman offered cheer in a letter "reminiscing" about their old German-American neighborhood in the 1880s and 1890s. (Goodman actually had grown up in Philadelphia). He invented characters and events and wrote with irony and affection for those better times. Mencken rose instantly to the challenge and wrote a letter in similar vein. For three years, these correspondents tried to out-do each other in telling tall tales and catching the flavor of German-America in the late nineteenth century. Since Mencken's death in 1956 fragments and copies of the letters have reposed in the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

From Library Journal

Mencken often poked fun at conformist America for its tight-laced ideas and attitudes. In this volume of correspondence between him and Philip Goodman, the New York entrepreneur and man-about-town, the two men engage in a similar kind of humor (but rather more nostalgic in tone) for the special world of immigrant America during the 1880s and 1890s of their childhood. Edited by Sanders, a member of the Mencken Society, the letters (1918-20) are in part about business, but of greater interest are the made-up stories of German immigrants from Baltimore. Although both men are totally credible in their telling of these tales, nearly all of them are fictitious. Shining through is the love both feel for a more innocent time, a more artless way of being. The use of German "speaking names" (so chosen to describe the character of the person), the parade of human failings warmly embraced or soundly decried, and the several levels of humor all combine for an exceptional reading experience.?Robert Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Maryland Historical Society
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0938420577
• ISBN 13: 9780938420576
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Editor: Sanders Jack