Nietzsche's famous attack upon established Christianity and religion is brought to the reader in this superb hardcover edition of The Antichrist, introduced and translated by H.L. Mencken. The incendiary tone throughout The Antichrist separates it from most other well-regarded philosophical texts; even in comparison to Nietzsche's earlier works, the tone of indignation and conviction behind each argument made is evident. There is little lofty ponderousness; the book presents its arguments and points at a blistering pace, placing itself among the most accessible and comprehensive works of philosophy. The Antichrist comprises a total of sixty-two short chapters, each with distinct philosophical arguments or angle upon the targets of Christianity, organised religion, and those who masquerade as faithful but are in actuality anything but. Pointedly opposed to notions of Christian morality and virtue, Nietzsche vehemently sets out a case for the faith's redundancy and lack of necessity in human life.

Four of H.L. Mencken's "Prefaces" -- which are, in fact, major essays on literature -- are collected herein, including works on Joseph Conrad, Theodore Dreiser, James Huneker, and Puritanism as a Literary Force. Includes the preface from the fourth edition.

NOTES ON DEMOCRACY by H. L. MENCKEN JONATHAN. Contents include: I DEMOCRATIC MAN 1 HIS APPEARANCE IN THE WORLD 9 2 VARIETIES OF HOMO SAPIENS 15 3 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 21 POLITICS UNDER DEMOCRACY 29 5 THE ROLE OF THE HORMONES 35 6 ENVY AS A PHILOSOPHY 42 Jx LIBERTY AND DEMOCRATIC MAN 51 THE EFFECTS UPON PROGRESS 58 9 THE ETERNAL MOB 7 2 II THE DEMOCRATIC STATE 1 THE TWO KINDS OF DEMOCRACY 79 2 THE POPULAR WILL 85 3 DISPROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION 97 4 THE POLITICIAN UNDER DEMOCRACY 1 07 5 UTOPIA 115 6 THE OCCASIONAL EXCEPTION 124 7 THE MAKER OF LAWS 131 8 THE REWARDS OF VIRTUE 139 9 FOOTNOTE ON LAME DUCKS 148 5 CONTENTS PAGE III DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY 1 THE WILL TO PEACE 157 2 THE DEMOCRAT AS MORALIST 1 62 3 WHERE PURITANISM FAILS 1 77 4 CORRUPTION UNDER DEMOCRACY 187 IV CODA 1 THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY 2O7 2 LAST WORDS 2l8. DEMOCRATIC MAN: HIS APPEARANCE IN THE WORLD. DEMOCRACY came into the Western World to the tune of sweet, soft music. There was, at the start, no harsh bawling from below there was only a dulcet twittering from above. Democratic man thus began as an ideal being, full of ineffable virtues and romantic wrongs in brief, as Rous seaus noble savage in smock and jerkin, brought out of the tropical wilds to shame the lords and masters of the civilized lands. The fact continues to have important consequences to this day. It remains impossible, as it was in the eighteenth century, to separate the democratic idea from the theory that there is a mystical merit, an esoteric and ineradicable rectitude, in the man at the bottom of the scale - that inferiority, by some strange magic, becomes a sort of superiority - nay, the superiority of superiorities. Everywhere on earth, save where the enlightenment of the modern age is confessedly in transient eclipse, the move ment is toward the completer and more enamoured enfranchisement of the lower orders. Down there, one hears, lies a deep, illimitable reservoir of righteousness and wisdom, unpolluted by the corruption of privilege. What baffles statesmen is to be solved by the people, instantly and by a sort of seraphic intuition. Their yearnings are pure they alone are capable of a perfect patriot ism in them is the only hope of peace and happi ness on this lugubrious ball. The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy This notion, as I hint, originated in the poetic fancy of gentlemen on the upper levels - senti mentalists who, observing to their distress that the ass was over-laden, proposed to reform trans port by putting him into the cart. A stale Chris tian bilge ran through their veins, though many of them, as it happened, toyed with what is now called Modernism. They were the direct ancestors of the more saccharine Liberals of to-day, who yet mouth their tattered phrases and dream their pre posterous dreams. I can find no record that these phrases, in the beginning, made much impression upon the actual objects of their rhetoric. Early democratic man seems to have given little thought to the democratic ideal, and less veneration. What he wanted was something concrete and highly materialistic - more to eat, less work, higher wages, lower taxes. He had no apparent belief in the acroamatic virtue of his own class, and certainly none in its capacity to rule. His aim was not to exterminate the baron, but simply to bring the baron back to a proper discharge of baronial busi ness. When, by the wild shooting that naturally accompanies all mob movements, the former end was accidentally accomplished, and men out of the mob began to take on baronial airs, the mob itself quickly showed its opinion of them by butchering them deliberately and in earnest. Once the pikes were out, indeed, it was a great deal more dangerous to be a tribune of the people than to be an ornament of the old order...

Before H. L. Mencken became "Mencken" he tried his hand at writing short stories for a wide variety of popular magazines. But ultimately he decided that fiction was not his forte and instead focused his energy on the essays and criticism that made him famous. Mencken's short stories have been virtually forgotten: omitted from bibliographies, overlooked by scholars, and available only to intrepid readers who hunted down copies of the original magazines. Thus The Passing of a Profit, Douglas Olson's collection of 17 forgotten stories written between 1900 and 1906, will be welcomed by Mencken aficionados. Sparkling with Mencken's trademark wit and irony, most of these stories are about "ugly Americans" pushed to their limits in dealings with "others" women, Europeans, Latin Americans, and Blacks. Several stories draw upon Mencken's travels in Jamaica. Although most of these stories are light farces with abrupt endings, "The Last Cavalry Charge" (1906) is a terrifying prophecy of the mechanized slaughters that were soon to define the twentieth century. Nobody who loves H. L. Mencken's voice will be immune to the charms of these stories. It is not often that a new book appears by a writer who has been dead for more than 50 years, but this volume will be new to virtually everyone. The Passing of a Profit is obligatory reading not merely for Mencken scholars but also for his legions of avid admirers.

Here is Friedrich Nietzsche's great masterpiece The Anti-Christ, wherein Nietzsche attacks Christianity as a blight on humanity. This classic is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Nietzsche and his place within the history of philosophy. "We should not deck out and embellish Christianity: it has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man, it has put all the deepest instincts of this type under its ban, it has developed its concept of evil, of the Evil One himself, out of these instincts-the strong man as the typical reprobate, the 'outcast among men.' Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self-preservative instincts of sound life; it has corrupted even the faculties of those natures that are intellectually most vigorous, by representing the highest intellectual values as sinful, as misleading, as full of temptation. The most lamentable example: the corruption of Pascal, who believed that his intellect had been destroyed by original sin, whereas it was actually destroyed by Christianity " -Friedrich Nietzsche

In this hardcover edition, Nietzsche's classic critique of the composer Wagner is paired with three other works, including The Antichrist, in translations to English which render the philosopher's arguments vividly cogent. First published in 1888, The Case for Wagner is a selection of essays and aphorisms levy a variety of criticisms, with Nietzsche ironically making a comparison between Wagner and a French composer, Georges Bizet. The Antichrist comprises a total of sixty-two short chapters, each containing a distinct philosophical argument or angle upon the targets of Christianity, organised religion, and those who masquerade as faithful but are in actuality anything but. This edition also includes a selection of aphorisms penned by Nietzsche, many of which effectively summarize points he visited in his philosophy.

The decisive influence of Friedrich Nietzsche on H.L. Mencken is readily acknowledged in the vast literature on the great American journalist and social critic. However, Mencken's 1908 study of the philosopher has been relegated to footnote status by Mencken's critics and biographers and has been largely ignored by Nietzsche scholars. There are good reasons for reversing this judgment. Mencken's work was one of the first comprehensive and sympathetic treatments of Nietzsche's thought in the English language. It is a provocative engagement with the German philosopher's complex and elusive ideas, enhanced by a style that reverberates with a verve and dynamism approaching Nietzsche's own. Mencken presents a view of Nietzsche that elucidates the latter's complex and contentious form of the "gospel of individualism" while evincing a keen appreciation of his unrivalled capacity for critical analysis. The historical scope of Nietzsche's thought is fully evident in Mencken's analysis as is its application to modern societies and politics. In tracing the biographical and intellectual impetus for Nietzsche's relentless attacks on conventional moralities and established modes of thought, Mencken discerned both an ideal and a method for grappling with social and cultural issues that remain salient in our own time.

This is Nietzsche's last book and a fitting capstone to his career. It's succinct, biting, and encapsulates the criticisms of Christianity found in his other works. This edition contains an 8,000-word introduction by its translator, the famous iconoclastic writer H. L. Mencken.

Collected here in this omnibus edition are three of Nietzsche's three most important books: The Anti-Christ, Beyond Good and Evil, and Thus Spake Zarathustra, as well as The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by Henry Louis Mencken. A perfect book for new readers of Nietzsche or anyone hoping to understand his writing and philosophy more thoroughly. The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by Henry Louis Mencken was the first, and many believe the best book on the subject. Mencken was known for his attention to detail. This book is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand Nietzche and his underlying philosophy. Thus Spake Zarathustra is a masterpiece of philosophical literature, and it is here that Nietzsche uttered the famous phrase "God is dead " This powerful book spells out Nietzsche's belief in the will to power, and serves as an introduction to his doctrine of eternal return. One of the most influential books of philosophy ever written. Nietzsche writes with style, power, and conviction. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacks past philosophers for their alleged lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of the Christian premises in their consideration of morality. The work attempts to moves "beyond good and evil" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a destructive critique in favor of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual. Here is Friedrich Nietzsche's great masterpiece The Anti-Christ, wherein Nietzsche attacks Christianity as a blight on humanity. This classic is essential reading for anyone wishing tounderstand Nietzsche and his place within the history of philosophy.

The decisive influence of Friedrich Nietzsche on H.L. Mencken is readily acknowledged in the vast literature on the great American journalist and social critic. However, Mencken's 1908 study of the philosopher has been relegated to footnote status by Mencken's critics and biographers and has been largely ignored by Nietzsche scholars. There are good reasons for reversing this judgment. Mencken's work was one of the first comprehensive and sympathetic treatments of Nietzsche's thought in the English language. It is a provocative engagement with the German philosopher's complex and elusive ideas, enhanced by a style that reverberates with a verve and dynamism approaching Nietzsche's own.

Mencken presents a view of Nietzsche that elucidates the latter's complex and contentious form of the "gospel of individualism" while evincing a keen appreciation of his unrivalled capacity for critical analysis. The historical scope of Nietzsche's thought is fully evident in Mencken's analysis as is its application to modern societies and politics. In tracing the biographical and intellectual impetus for Nietzsche's relentless attacks on conventional moralities and established modes of thought, Mencken discerned both an ideal and a method for grappling with social and cultural issues that remain salient in our own time.

With a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Henry Louis Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. Now, fifty years after Mencken's death, the Johns Hopkins University Press announces The Buncombe Collection, newly packaged editions of nine Mencken classics: "Happy Days," "Heathen Days," "Newspaper Day"s, "Prejudices," "Treatise on the Gods," "On Politics," "Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work," "Minority Report," and "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy."

In 1956, Mencken read through his notebooks and extracted those pieces he thought truest, most pertinent, most precise, or most likely to blow the dust out of a reader's brain.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

With a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Henry Louis Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. Now, fifty years after Mencken's death, the Johns Hopkins University Press announces The Buncombe Collection, newly packaged editions of nine Mencken classics: "Happy Days," "Heathen Days," "Newspaper Day"s, "Prejudices," "Treatise on the Gods," "On Politics," "Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work," "Minority Report," and "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy."

Most of these autobiographical writings first appeared in the "New Yorker." Here Mencken recalls memories of a safe and happy boyhood in the Baltimore of the 1880s.