No author did more to establish the persona of Friedrich Nietzsche in America than H. L. Mencken. His 1908 study, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche—the first full-length English-language book written for a general audience in America—offered a rollicking master narrative about Nietzsche’s religious upbringing, his intellectual path from parsonage to public enemy, his battle with poor health, and his warfare on the slave morality of modern Christianity. Nietzsche’s dramatic life story and personality were for Mencken no sideline attractions: they were relevant for understanding the
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