When H. L. Mencken talked, everyone listened -- like it or not. In the Roaring Twenties, he was the one critic who mattered, the champion of a generation of plain-speaking writers who redefined the American novel, and the ax-swinging scourge of the know-nothing, go-getting middle-class philistines whom he dubbed the "booboisie." Some loved him, others loathed him, but everybody read him. Now Terry Teachout takes on the man Edmund Wilson called "our greatest practicing literary journalist," brilliantly capturing all of Mercken's energy and erudition, passion and paradoxes, in a masterful biography of this iconoclastic figure and the world he shaped.
From his carefree days as a teenage cub reporter in turn-of-the-century Baltimore to his noisy tenure as founding editor of the American Mercury, the most influential magazine of the twenties, Mencken distinguished himself with a contrary spirit, a razor-sharp wit (he coined the term "Bible Belt"), and a keen eye for such up-and-coming authors as Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He covered everything, from the Scopes evolution trial to the 1948 presidential elections, in the pages of the Baltimore Sun. He wrote bestselling books about the failure of democracy, the foibles of the female sex, and what he memorably called "the American language." But his favorite topic was the one he saw wherever he looked: the sterile, life-denying strain of puritanism that he believed was strangling the culture of his native land.
No modern writer has been more controversial than H. L. Mencken. His fans saw him as the fearless leader of the endless battle against ignorance and hypocrisy, while his enemies dismissed him as a cantankerous, self-righteous ideologue. The surging popularity of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the politician he hated most, eventually caused his star to fade, but the unsparing vigor of his critique of American life and letters -- and the raucously colloquial prose style in which he blasted the Babbitts -- retains its freshness and relevance to this day.
Himself an accomplished critic and journalist, Terry Teachout has combed through reams of Mencken's private papers, including the searingly candid autobiographical manuscripts sealed after his death in 1956. Out of this material he has fashioned a portrait of the artist as intellectual gadfly, working newspaperman, devoted husband, and faithless ]over. Meticulously researched, elegantly written, and completely absorbing, The Skeptic vividly evokes the life and legacy of a true American legend.

The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken

Biographies & Memoirs

Teachout, Terry

Arts & Literature

Harper

When H. L. Mencken talked, everyone listened - like it or not. In the Roaring Twenties, he was the one critic who mattered, the champion of a generation of plain-speaking writers who redefined the American novel, and the ax-swinging scourge of the know-nothing, go-getting middle-class philistines whom he dubbed the "booboisie." Some loved him, others loathed him, but everybody read him. Now Terry Teachout takes on the man Edmund Wilson called "our greatest practicing literary journalist," brilliantly capturing all of Mencken's energy and erudition, passion and paradoxes, in a masterful biography of this iconoclastic figure and the world he shaped.

History

Harper-perennial

Twenty years after his death, George Balanchine still dominates the world of ballet. Not only have his works been danced by the New York City Ballet continuously since 1948, but they also have been performed by more than two dozen other companies throughout the world. In clear and elegant writing, Terry Teachout brings to life the dramatic story of George Balanchine, a Russian émigré who fell in love with American culture, married four times and kept a mistress on the side, and transformed the art of ballet forever.

All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine

Humor & Entertainment

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

A great artist who was also a good man. A genius born in poverty who became known in every corner of the world. An entertainer who knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. Terry Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers to craft a sweeping new narrative biography of Louis Armstrong, the twentieth century's most influential jazz musician.

Mariner Books

Terry Teachout’s thought-provoking observations on everyone from Louis Armstrong to The Sopranos, and on everything from American opera to serials on TV Terry Teachout, one of our most acute cultural commentators, here turns his sharp eye to every corner of the arts world—music, dance, literature, theater, film, TV, and the visual arts. This collection gathers the best of Teachout’s writings from the past fifteen years. In each essay he offers lucid and balanced judgments that invariably illuminate, sometimes infuriate, and always spark a response—the mark of a critic whose thoughts, however controversial, cannot be ignored. In a thoughtful introduction to the book, Teachout considers how American culture of the twenty-first century differs from that of the last century and how the information age has altered popular culture. His selected essays chronicle America’s cultural journey over the past decade and a half, and they show us what has been lost—and gained—along the way. With highly informed opinions, an inimitable wit and style, and a genuine devotion to all things cultural, Teachout offers his readers much to delight in and much to ponder.

A Terry Teachout Reader

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

Louis Armstrong is widely known as the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century. He was a phenomenally gifted and imaginative artist, and an entertainer so irresistibly magnetic that he knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. Offstage he was witty, introspective, and unexpectedly complex, a beloved colleague with an explosive temper whose larger-than-life personality was tougher and more sharp-edged than his worshiping fans ever knew.
Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers, including hundreds of candid after-hours recordings made by Armstrong himself, to craft a sweeping new narrative biography. Certain to be the definitive word on Armstrong for our generation, Pops paints a gripping portrait of the man, his world, and his music that will stand alongside Gary Giddins’s Bing Crosby and Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis as a classic biography of a major American musician.

A native of Sikeston, Missouri, pays tribute to small-town life in America, discussing the things he misses and the reasons he finally left for New York City

CITY LIMITS: MEMORIES OF A SMALL TOWN BOY

Professionals & Academics

Simon&Schuster

A native of Sikeston, Missouri, pays tribute to small-town life in America, discussing the things he misses and the reasons he finally left for New York City

City Limits

Satchmo at the Waldorf

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Dramatist's Play Service

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Teachout, Terry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Teachout, Terry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Teachout, Terry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken

The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken

All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine

A Terry Teachout Reader

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

CITY LIMITS: MEMORIES OF A SMALL TOWN BOY

City Limits

Satchmo at the Waldorf