MENCKEN, H.L Treatise on the Gods. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1930.
8vo. Blue vellum boards in original white dust jacket in black paper-covered slipcase with gilt lettering to spine, top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed; pp. xi, [v], 365, xii, printed on Borzoi rag paper, largely uncut; skillful repair to bottom edge of front of jacket, slipcase slightly soiled, otherwise very fresh with vellum bright and clean.
No. 58 of limited first edition of 376, signed by Mencken.
Mencken's survey of theology and religion was highly successful, selling out its first and second printings before publication. He considered it to be his best work and many reviewers agreed as, in his characteristic bracing style, he took aim at organised religion, priests and "magic" while also providing a well-researched history of religious belief. It was inevitably controversial, with theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr arguing that he had missed the whole point of religion: "Mr. Mencken knows nothing about the mystics who were engaged in the business of transcending physical circumstances… [nor] the long line of prophets whose ethical insights were nurtured in the religious experience and contributed mightily to the advancement of the race. To him all this is a closed book." (The Atlantic, June 1930). Such controversy only led to greater popularity for a book that shows Mencken's iconoclasm at its height.
We would note that this edition contains a notoriously racist description of Jewish people which was removed from the revised edition of 1946 at the request of the publisher; the Knopf family were Jewish. Such openly racist views were a poor reflection on a writer who was otherwise capable of great insight and who was one of the most admired commentators of his day.
SKU: 2124054