Mencken and the Morons
H.L. Mencken and George Nathan (a lifelong playboy who converted to Catholicism on his deathbed) bought the failing Smart Set in late 1914 (and immediately put this slogan on the cover: "One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads"). By mid-1915, they were receiving so many manuscripts that they started to siphon off the better rejects into a magazine for "the morons," then use the proceeds from that magazine to subsidize the higher brow, but less profitable, Smart Set. The new magazine, Parisienne Monthly Magazine, was so successful that they started two others: Saucy Stories and Black Mask. These moron magazines helped launch the careers of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Mencken and Nathan ended up selling the magazines for $50,000 (about $700,000 in 2013 dollars). Source: Terry Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken (Harper Collins, 2002), p. 109, 122.
