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# Miscellaneous Matter
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/30612/
- Published: 2013-12-05T06:15:47.000Z
- Updated: 2013-12-05T06:15:47.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: Miscellaneous, #wpChunk

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Miscellaneous-Photo-225x300.jpg "Miscellaneous Photo")

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.