Description
| Author/Contributor(s): | Mencken, H.L.; Winslow, Art |
| Publisher: | Melville House |
| Date: | 9/1/2006 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| Condition: | NEW |
“Thenative American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in theSunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition.”
—Alistair Cooke
Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, ’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventuallyinspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind.
Mencken’ s no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroomdrama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and WilliamJennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—includinga raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.
Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of theirown—until now.
A Religious Orgy In Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports forThe Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverageof Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forcedby his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet againin a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included,as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary exchange: Darrow’s blisteringcross-examination of Bryan.
With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’ s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.