H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan had previously edited "The Smart Set" literary magazine, when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for "The Baltimore Sun". With their mutual book publisher Alfred A. Knopf Sr. serving as the publisher, Mencken and Nathan created "The American Mercury" as "a serious review, the gaudiest and damnedest ever seen in the Republic", as Mencken explained the name (derived from a 19th-century publication) to his old friend and contributor Theodore Dreiser: