The American Language was a surprise bestseller upon its publication in 1919 and is still respected as a classic work today. While some linguists dismiss the book as the work of a talented amateur, its admirers outnumber its detractors. Mencken's contemporaries praised the work as thorough, scientifically sound, intriguing, and entertaining. Praising the book for its scientific approach, W. H. A.Williams of Twayne's United States Authors Series Online describes it as "a work of solid, painstaking research." Brander Matthews, a founding member and president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, comments in a 1919 review for the New York Times Book Review that Mencken is "armed at all points" in this authoritative work. He describes the book as "interesting and useful; it is a book to be taken seriously; it is a book well planned, well proportioned, well documented, and well written," adding that he...