I came upon this curious pamphlet1 by Maurice Knight, curious in itself, being a manufacturer's catalog for gravestones/markers/monuments, which was something I knew must have existed in dozens of different incantations through the years, though I had never actually seen one. Opening the catalog I saw at the bottom the small and distinctive rubber stamp stating that this was once the property of H.L. Mencken, who shed it to the Library of Congress in 1926, and which later was sold to me in the library's Exchange Program for surplus and duplicate material.
Knight was a Baltimore man and firm, and as it turns out there are numerous examples of Knight's work pictured ("in use") in a number of Baltimore cemeteries, but most interestingly in Loudon Park Cemetery, where the Mencken family plot is located. I cannot tell if the Mencken stones have any connection to Knight, or if Mencken was planning something else. (There are no annotations by Mencken in the text nor I guess should there be--I just state this because if I don't I imagine that someone will ask.). Mencken's family plot was already well-established, so I'm really not sure why he would have this prospectus.
Anyway, here it is. The title of the catalog tells the reader to "Consult the Master"--with Mencken, I wonder who that master might have been?
Ironically the location of the stone works (1025 West Mulberry St, Balto) is now a simple empty lot, its nothingness secured by a chain-link fence. Not a very romantic end to a business who purpose was remeberance.
Notes:
1. Consult the Master, Maurice L. Knight, for your Monument-Tomb-Vault. Office and Works, 1025 West Mulberry St., Baltimore, MD. 9x6", ca. 75pp, with 150+ illustrations of the work of the stone master. Title printed vertically though the book opens horizontally. Original wrappers. The wrappers are scuffed and bumped a bit around the edges, though the text is bright and clean. Provenance: stamped on the reverse of the title page "Gift/Mr. H.L. Mencken/March 30, 1926", being a gift to the Library of Congress, with their surplus stamp on the rear cover.
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