From Baltimore to Bohemia

Some of Menckens most interesting letters were written to George Sterling, a pupil of Ambrose Bierce. The correspondencewhich survives nearly intact on both sidescovers a wealth of subjects, including Menckens editorship of the Smart Set (1914-23) and American Mercury (1924-26), mutual colleagues (Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis), and most entertainingly, each authors flagrant flouting of Prohibition as well as Sterlings carnal adventures with a variety of women in California. These letters shed a vivid light on the literary, political, social, and cultural temper of the Jazz Age.