H. L. Mencken Letters

Sometime in 1927 Lou Wylie submitted a poem to The American Mercury, a leading journal of letters and opinion. On September 26, 1927 H. L. Mencken, editor of that magazine, wrote Wylie that her poem had been accepted and would appear in a forthcoming issue. Thus began a correspondence between the two that lasted over twenty years. This collection preserves one side of that exchange--the letters written to Wylie by Mencken or by his secretary. Wylie must have been flattered by Mencken's interest. For by 1927 he had established himself as one of the nation's leading writers. Born in Baltimore in 1880, he began his career in 1899 as a police reporter on one of the local newspapers. His subsequent labors on one or another of the Baltimore dailies--as reporter, columnist, or editor--won him recognition as a talented and prolific journalist. With similar success--and while still working as a newspaperman--he ventured into the world of magazines. In 1908 he became literary critic of The Smart Set; in 1914 he became that magazine's coeditor, a position he held until 1923. In 1924 he helped found The American Mercury and served as its editor from 1924 to 1933. In addition, he found time to write many books, including The American Language, an important study of the English language in the U.S. This prodigious output was marked by Mencken's aggressive iconoclasm and by his gift for invective; he was a formidable polemicist whose combative prose mocked the sacred and the conventional in American social, political, and literary life. He was also an effective champion of aspiring writers. As the nation's most powerful literary critic, he discovered or brought to national prominence such talents as Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, and Theodore Dreiser and encouraged others whose names and contributions have since been forgotten. Lou Wiley was one of the latter. She was probably born in Kentucky at the end of the nineteenth century. By 1927 she was a reporter and feature writer on New Orleans's leading newspaper, the Times-Picayune. At the behest of a Times-Picayune superior, she shortened her name from Louise to Lou because, as she recalled years later, "I was taking over a feature signed by a man and he seemed to think it would [lose] effectiveness with a feminine by-line." Given her interest in writing, she was probably drawn to the literary circles that flourished in New Orleans during the 1920s. She knew one of that milieu's more prominent figures, John McClure. In 1927 McClure was the Times-Picayune's literary editor and a poet whose work had earlier been published by Mencken in The Smart Set; he had also been a founder and an editor of Double Dealer, a small but influential New Orleans-based literary magazine that existed from 1921 to 1926. Mencken thought highly of McClure's ability and kept up a correspondence with him. Their relationship may have helped Wylie break into the pages of The American Mercury; for according to her later account, in 1927 Mencken asked McClure about the Lou Wylie whose poems had recently come across his desk. But whatever the attractions of New Orleans, in 1928 Wylie moved to New York City, where she worked as a journalist and publicist. At some point she married--Mencken began to address her as Mrs. Van Sicklen in 1941--though that union apparently dissolved in 1949. About 1941 she returned to New Orleans, where she handled publicity for Pan American Airways. Over the years she maintained her literary ambitions, but her accomplishments were apparently modest. During Mencken's tenure as editor, however, The American Mercury did publish at least two of her writings--the poem "Psalms of Love" appeared in the January 1928 issue; and the short story "Dance-Hall Lady" appeared in the July 1933 issue. The relationship between Mencken and Wylie was confined to correspondence; the two never met. Mencken's letters to her were, in general, brief notes, usually no more than a couple of short paragraphs. In them he often encouraged her literary efforts and suggested publications to which she might submit material; he often inquired about John McClure, typically lamenting McClure's failure both to develop his literary talents and to respond to Mencken's letters; and he often commented with mordant humor on topics as varied as publishing, literature, politics, religion, and his own health. His last letter to her was dated November 15, 1948. On November 23 he suffered a cerebral thrombosis that permanently robbed him of his ability to read and write. Thereafter his secretary, Rosalind C. Lohrfinck, handled his correspondence. Mencken died in Baltimore on January 29, 1956.

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