For more than a quarter of a century, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers has been considered the foremost authority on the American critic and journalist H.L. Mencken as well as the editor of his works.
Mencken was born and lived his entire life in Baltimore where he was long associated with the Baltimore Sun papers along with editing two of the nation’s most distinguished literary magazines – The American Mercury and The Smart Set. He was also the author of The American Language.
Ms. Rodgers is the author of a critically acclaimed biography – “Mencken: The American Iconoclast” – published by Oxford University Press in 2007. She also edited “Mencken and Sara: A Life in Letters: The Private Correspondence of H.L. Mencken and Sara Haardt.” In addition, she edited Mencken’s six-part “Prejudices” series in their most recent and definitive edition (Library of America). She is also the editor of “The Impossible H.L. Mencken: A Selection of His Best Newspaper Stories” published in 1991.
Most recently, Ms. Rodgers edited the definitive “H. L. Mencken: The Days Trilogy, Expanded Edition: (Library of America)” published last year. Mencken’s memoirs, which began in the 1940s as installments in The New Yorker, included more than 200 never-before-published pages of his notes. There is no single American writer and critic more knowledgeable about “the sage of Baltimore.”
Marion Elizabeth Rodgers will speak on March 31 at 8:30 a.m. in PAHB 428 (Advanced Journalism Seminar). Visitors are welcome.
