The Arthur J. Gutman Collection of Menckeniana

Arthur J. Gutman, President of the Mencken Society from 1979 to 1999, donated his collection of H. L. Mencken materials to the University of Maryland Libraries in 2001. Mr. Gutman assembled one of the finest private collections of first and limited editions of Mencken's works, many of them signed and inscribed by the author. The Arthur J. Gutman Collection of Menckeniana contains books, clippings, letters, manuscripts, periodicals, pamphlets, and photographs related to both H. L. Mencken and to the Mencken Society. The collection contains a considerable amount of correspondence between Gutman and noted Mencken scholars, manuscripts of works on Mencken, and an almost complete series of Mencken Society newsletters. There are also a number of rare pieces of Mencken's writing which appeared in pamphlet form, as well as some original Mencken correspondence. The books and some of the periodicals have been catalogued and can be located by searching the library catalog or by consulting the the inventory below. Researchers can gain access to all other material through the finding aid to the collection.