When H. L. Mencken died in 1956, he left behind well-ordered diaries, letters, and personal papers that biographer Fred Hobson has collected in the definitive portrait of a complex and colorful life. In A Life, Hobson quotes liberally from Mencken's writings on every subject, from Americans ( and "the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag and ") to the English ( and "England gave us Puritanism, Germany gave us Pilsner and "), from his thoughts on Jews (both and "the most unpleasant race ever heard of and " and "the chief dreamers of the human race, and beyond all comparison its greatest poets and ") to Puritanism ( and "that haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy and "). Along with Mencken's well-known literary slashings at the and "boobsoisie and " - with his trademark political and "incorrectitude and " - Hobson's access to thousands of pages of personal manuscripts allows a broad and thoughtful look at the demons and affections of the personal life of the Sage of Baltimore. The result is a picture that would satisfy even its subject's critical eye. and "A beautifully crafted, thoroughly entertaining and intellectually unsentimental book that even Mencken might find met his standards. and " - Jack W. Germond, The Baltimore Sun and "Mencken is a comprehensive yet bracingly readable effort that will delight readers as a cold glass of pilsner would have refreshed its subject on a summer's day. and " - Martin F. Nolan, The Boston Globe