The provocative H.L. Mencken has long been considered the most controversial and influential of journalists, and now we can fully appreciate his work with two slipcased, handsomely produced volumes from the Library of America. PREJUDICES: THE COMPLETE SERIES (Library of America, $70) contains all six series of Mencken’s iconoclastic writing on American culture. Mencken’s critical eye ranged from the local to the national, and he wrote just as unsparingly about politics and famous court cases as he did in his book reviews and his celebratory writings on Baltimore. As we’ve come to expect, the Library of America outdoes itself with an impressive selection of notes, an exhaustive chronology, and an excerpt from Mencken’s later memoir in which he reflects on the public and intellectual reception of his “Prejudices.”