As introduced and edited by Robert McHugh, this collection of many shorter pieces present Mencken in the "role he liked best"- as a newspaperman- beginning with the featured, title piece which first appeared in the N.Y. Evening Mail in 1917. This "tissue of absurdities, all of them deliberate and most of them obvious" was written to test- and prove- his contention that the public is fatuously credulous. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the first bathtub installation in Cincinnati, Ohio (solid mahogany, lead lined, weight 1,750 pounds) it provides a history of the bathtub from medical resistance thereto to public acceptance thereof- and of course, an even greater public acceptance of the whole hoax that it was. In the other pieces which follow, topically arranged, Mencken is the aggressive advocate of free expression and other liberties (birth control; equality before the law; etc.); he is a critic-Poe, Dreiser, Mark Twain, Beethoven, and on more general phases of the arts; he is the serious thinker and skeptic- and many matters concern him- religion and ethics, politics and government, education and language; and the collection closes with some forays on marriage or the movies, peace, progress, even cooking.... Even while some of the material may seem dated, the Sage of Baltimore is still very much alive- and the practical validity of his judgments as well as the downright vitality of the man endure.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0374955697
Page Count: -
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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