Serpent in Eden: H. L. Mencken and the South

The appearance in 1920 of H. L. Mencken’s scathing essay about the intellectual and cultural impoverishment of the South, “The Sahara of the Bozart”, set off a firestorm of reaction in the region that continued unabated for much of the next decade. In Serpent in Eden, Mencken scholar Fred Hobson examines Mencken’s love-hate relationship with the South. He explores not only Mencken’s savage criticism of the region but also his efforts to encourage southern writers and the bold “little magazi...