Hopkins lands Mencken trove

Nearly 6,000 books, photographs and letters by and about H.L. Mencken have been acquired by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from the estate of an accountant with a penchant for the curmudgeonly journalist.

George H. Thompson began collecting Mencken-related material in 1962 and continued until his death last year, said Cynthia Requardt, a curator at the Sheridan Libraries.

Mencken, a reporter and columnist for the Baltimore Sun, was a prominent literary and social critic in the first half of the 20th century.