Mencken: The American Iconoclast: The American Iconoclast: The Life and Times of the Bad Boys of Baltimore - Softcover

"This book is both enlightening and marvelous to read."―Blue Ridge Business Journal

"The most superb and entertaining biography (in any field) that I've read in years, one that has 'National Book Award' stamped all over it."―Joseph Goulden, Washington Times

"Skillfully written, broadly encompassing and fairly bristling with documentation, it is, overall, the best―as well as longest―of the four [major Mencken biographies]."―Chicago Sun-Times

"Definitive.... The last word on perhaps the most famous newspaper man of the 20th century."―Bloomsberg News

"Rodgers isn't the first to tell the story of powerful and controversial thinker and writer Mencken, but her affection for this notorious iconoclast and her access to untapped sources make for a uniquely fresh and absorbing biography."―Booklist (in naming Mencken one of the top ten biographies of the year)

"Every new generation should rediscover H. L. Mencken, and every journalist should read this fine biography. Marion Elizabeth Rodgers has produced a balanced, measured portrait, proving herself as adept at probing the labyrinth of Mencken's private life as she is at placing his iconoclasm in the context of his times."―The London Sunday Times

"In this splendid biography...Rodgers juggles the dense narrative of Mencken's life and times with considerable dexterity, while also providing a glimpse into his very private world.... His was one of the key American literary lives of the 20th century and Rodgers has, quite simply, done him proud."―The London Independent

"Marion Rodgers has written a comprehensive and humane biography.... In these troubled times, compared to Mencken, with all his faults, we journalists look like pygmies."―The London Literary Review

"By far the best Mencken biography ever written―and this reviewer has read almost a dozen.... This book is a masterpiece.... If you care about America, ideas, courage, and good writing and read only one biography this year, I would suggest this be the one."―Toledo Blade

"Even now, almost 50 years after his death, many of Mencken's political insights hold true...as Rodgers shows in this thorough work, Mencken was more than a newspaperman and prolific author.... This is a meticulous portrait of one of the most original and complicated men in American letters." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Marion Elizabeth Rodgers has edited Mencken and Sara: A Life in Letters and The Impossible H.L. Mencken, a popular collection of his best journalism. She lives in Washington, D.C. .