was born in Baltimore in 1880 and died there in 1956. Educated privately and at Baltimore Polytechnic, he began his long career as journalist, critic, and philologist on the Baltimore Morning Herald in 1899. In 1906 he joined the staff of the Baltimore Sun, thus initiating an association with the Sun papers which lasted until a few years before his death. He was co-editor of the Smart Set with George Jean Nathan from 1908 to 1923, and with Nathan he founded in 1924 the American Mercury, of which he was editor until 1933. His numerous books include A Book of Burlesques (1916); A Book of Prefaces (1917);In Defense of Women (1917); The American Language (1918—4th revision, 1936); Supplement One (1945); Supplement Two (1948); six volumes of Prejudices (1919, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1927); Notes on Democracy (1926); Treatise on the Gods (1930); Treatise on Right and Wrong (1934); Happy Days (1940); Newspaper Days (1941); Heathen Days (1943); A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949); and Minority Report (1956). Mencken also edited several books; he selected and edited A New Dictionary of Quotations (1942). He was co-author of a number of books, including Europe after 8:15 (1914); The American Credo (1920); Heliogabalus (a play, 1920); and The Sunpapers of Baltimore (1937).