Red Conspirator: J. Peters and the American Communist Underground by Thomas Sakmyster; University of Illinois Press, March 2011 $50.00, 312 pages, including 6 black & white photographs reviewed by David Chambers FROM AUGUST 3, 1948, until today, America has had to wait to learn more about the head of Soviet espionage in Washington during the 1930s. On that day, Whittaker Continue Reading →
Poetry is an art much neglected — or mangled — by the anti-Western ideologues that dominate what remains of our culture today. But it is an integral part of our civilization, and we are incomplete without it. by Martin Wright Sampson, Professor of English Literature, Cornell University I REMEMBER that as a small boy I used to wonder what there Continue Reading →
Honeyed and abrasive: the irrepressible journalism of the ‘Sage of Baltimore’ and American Mercury founder by Michael Dirda H.L. MENCKEN (1880—1956) is often smilingly referred to as the Sage of Baltimore (especially in Baltimore), but during the first third of the twentieth century he was the most outspoken, irrepressibly contrarian literary and political journalist in the United States. As the Continue Reading →
JAMES MALLAHAN CAIN died 33 years ago today. Cain (July 1, 1892 — October 27, 1977) was a celebrated American author and journalist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir. Several of his crime novels inspired highly successful Continue Reading →
by Ann Hendon ACCORDING TO Reading Local, there’s a new literary reading series in Baltimore that honors the spirit of H.L. Mencken and The American Mercury. They say: The second installment of the New Mercury Reading Series was held at Jordan Faye Contemporary Gallery, featuring Charles Cohen, Steve Luxenberg, and Melissa Hale. Their mission statement is a re-envisioning of H. Continue Reading →