The appearance in 1920 of H. L. Mencken's scathing essay about the intellectual and cultural impoverishment of the South, "The Sahara of the Bozart," set off a firestorm of reaction in the region that continued unabated for much of the next decade. In Serpent in Eden, Mencken scholar Fred Hobson examines Mencken's love-hate relationship with the South. He explores not only Mencken's savage criticism of the region but also his efforts to encourage southern writers and the bold "little magazines," such as the Reviewer and the Double Dealer, that started up in the South during the...