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(Once that summer in Brooklyn, I pressed upon Sophie a volume of H. L. Mencken, who was then, as now, one of my infatuations, and I observe for what it is worth that she remarked that Mencken’s scathing style reminded her of her father’s.
William Styron -- Sophie’s Choice
I came finally to the editorial page and saw an article dealing with one H. L. Mencken.
Richard Wright -- Black Boy
He ambled up to Verona’s room, sat on her maidenly blue and white bed, humming and grunting in a solid-citizen manner as he examined her books: Conrad’s "Rescue," a volume strangely named "Figures of Earth," poetry (quite irregular poetry, Babbitt thought) by Vachel Lindsay, and essays by H. L. Mencken—highly improper essays, making fun of the church and all the decencies.
Sinclair Lewis -- Babbitt
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Through Uncle Harold I first heard of H. L. Mencken.
Russell Baker -- Growing Up
Years later, a Columbus newspaperman, on whose press our paper was printed, told me that H. L. Mencken had picked up this chirp out of me for The American Mercury as sample thinking from the Bible Belt.
Eudora Welty -- One Writer’s Beginnings
But H. L. Mencken argued that American and British speech had evolved so differently that by the beginning of the twentieth century Americans had as reasonable a claim as the British to consider English their language.
Robert MacNeil and William Crane -- Do You Speak American?
A book by H. L. Mencken.
Richard Wright -- Black Boy
Now, what were the names of books written by H. L. Mencken? I did not know any of them.
Richard Wright -- Black Boy
You mean to tell me you never heard of H. L. Mencken?
Russell Baker -- Growing Up
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Who’s H. L. Mencken?
Russell Baker -- Growing Up
H. L. Mencken.
Russell Baker -- Growing Up
To me he was the man playing Parcheesi and drinking cocoa in a two-room flat so close to H. L. Mencken, the man who infected me with the notion that there might be worse things to do with life than spend it in telling tales.
Russell Baker -- Growing Up
I finally wrote what I thought would be a foolproof note: Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy—I used the word "nigger" to make the librarian feel that I could not possibly be the author of the note—have some books by H. L. Mencken? I forged the white man’s name.
Richard Wright -- Black Boy
So little attention had been paid to the language of America’s black population that in the 1920s H. L. Mencken could seriously claim, "The Negro dialect, as we know it today, seems to have been formulated by the song writers for minstrel shows.
Robert MacNeil and William Crane -- Do You Speak American?