The American Mercury

The American Mercury magazine was founded in 1924 as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writer in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. The magazine suffered a silent death in 1981, having spent the last 25 years of its existence much in decay. Mencken and Nathan had previously edited The Smart Set literary magazine together, when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for the Baltimore Sun. With their mutual book publisher Alfred A. Knopf serving as the publisher, Mencken and Nathan created The American Mercury as "a serious review, the gaudiest and damnedest ever seen in the Republic," as Mencken explained the name (derived from a 19th-century publication) to his old friend and contributor, Theodore Dreiser: "What we need is something that looks highly respectable outwardly. The American Mercury is almost perfect for that purpose. What will go on... full article at wikipedia