Oxford Press, 2005 $35

H. L. Mencken was, without question, the finest newspaper columnist, book reviewer and political commentator this country has ever produced. He also made important contributions to academic linguistics with his multi-volume American Language. Even when he was wrong, as he often was—about Jews, Nazis, Orientals, Blacks, Britons, women and WASPs, for example—he was worth reading. Some loved him; some hated him; all read him. Until, that is, he died a half century ago on January 26, 1956. How then can a biographer miss? I depart from other reviewers, one of whom considers Mencken, The American Iconoclast “the best Mencken biography to date,” in believing that unfortunately Ms. Rodgers has found a way. Her book succeeds as a detailed diary of the author’s life; it fails to add meat to those bones. If you want to learn of Mencken’s affairs, some with Hollywood and Broadway actresses; if you want to read how he acted up at the Scopes trial and at national political conventions; or if you want to read about his editing positions and how he worked, read here. But if you want to gain an understanding of this amazing man, look elsewhere. Look in particular at his writing. Open to any page of The American Language or its supplements, to any collection of his columns, his essays or his correspondence and you will meet a prose stylist of the highest order. This is, after all, the writer who tells us, “Nature abhors a moron,” and “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”