In The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce defined war as a by-product of the arts of peace. A Civil War veteran, Bierce had absolutely no illusions about courage, honor, and glory on the battlefield. These stories form one of the great antiwar statements in American literature. Included here are the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Chickamauga, The Mocking Bird, The Coup de Grâce, Parker Anderson, Philosopher, and other stories celebrated for their intensity, startling insight, and mastery of form.

Before he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as bitter Bierce and the devil's lexicographer. He left behind a nasty reputation and more than ninety short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius. Brought together in this volume, these stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time. Readers familiar with the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge will want to turn to Bierce's other Civil War stories. Also included here are his horror stories, among them The Death of Halpin Frayser and The Damned Thing, and such tall tales as Oil of Dog and A Cargo of Cat.

Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.

In this extraordinary work of scathing satire, Ambrose Bierce provided new humorous definitions of the words that formed the lexicon of contemporary American life.

Accumulated over three decades for a series of magazines and newspapers, the entries in The Devil's Dictionary painted a revealing portrait of late 19th-century American life, with all its contradictions and hypocrisies laid bare.

Bierce's fantastic wit and incredible gift for irony shine through this true masterpiece of American literature. This handsome hardback edition with dust jacket makes a wonderful gift or collectible of this classic work of satire.

Born in Ohio in 1842, journalist, short-story writer and critic Ambrose Bierce developed into one of this country's most celebrated and cynical wits -- a merciless American Swift whose literary barbs were aimed at folly, self-delusion, politics, business, religion, literature and the arts. In this splendid dictionary of epigrams, essays, verses and vignettes, you'll find over 1,000 pointed definitions, e.g. Congratulation (The civility of envy), Coward (One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs) and Historian (A broad-gauge gossip). Anyone who likes to laugh will love The Devil's Dictionary. Anyone looking for a bon mot to enliven their next speech, paper or conversation will have a field day thumbing through what H. L. Mencken called some of the most gorgeous witticisms in the English language.

Bierce was considered a master of pure English by his contemporaries, and virtually everything that came from his pen was notable for its judicious wording and economy of style. He wrote in a variety of literary genres. His short stories are held among the best of the 19th century, providing a popular following based on his roots. He wrote realistically of the terrible things he had seen in the war in such stories as An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Boarded Window, Killed at Resaca,

The Wall Street Journal wrote that The Devil's Dictionary is probably the most brilliant work of satire written in America. And maybe one of the greatest in all of world literature. The New York Times reviewed: It is a tour de force of no mean proportions, because it is possible to read it from cover to cover without being bored, so amusing are his unexpected turns of caustic humor, so brilliant his flagitious wit and so diverting the verses and dicta of non-existent philosophers as 'Father Cassalasca Jape, S. J.', with which he illustrates them. This satirical dictionary consists of common words followed by humorous and satirical definitions. It was written by journalist and writer Ambrose Bierce. This new edition (easy-to-read layout) contains 26 illustrations or paintings by Gustave Dor .

Excerpt:

CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.

YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

Motionless now and in absolute silence, she awaited her doom, the moments growing to hours, to years, to ages; and still those devilish eyes maintained their watch.

Seen by contemporaries as a natural successor to Edgar Allan Poe but with the added dimensions of a man who had witnessed true horror fighting in some of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War, Ambrose Bierce was one of America's leading convention-defying writers, critics and essayists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - but still remains relatively unknown by many fans of the genre.

This new collection not only brings together some of Bierce's best and most unusual stories (such as 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', 'The Moonlit Road' and 'The Death of Halpin Frayser') but also highlights those aspects of his life which saw him as a loner, someone who stepped aside from society and observed it as some other being. Even in death Bierce was unconventional, disappearing to join the Mexican Revolution, never to be seen again - a mystery editor Mike Ashley explores in a closing essay for the book.

Questing after Pancho Villa's revolutionary forces, Ambrose Bierce rode into Mexico in 1913 and was never seen again. He left behind him theDevil's Dictionary and a remarkable body of short fiction.

This new collection gathers some of Bierce's finest stories, including the celebrated Civil War fictions 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' and 'Chickamauga', his macabre masterpieces, and his tales of supernatural horror. Reminiscent of Poe, these stories are marked by a sardonic humour and a realistic study of tense emotional states.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Newspaperman, short-story writer, poet, and satirist, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) is one of the most striking and unusual literary figures America has produced. Dubbed Bitter Bierce for his vitriolic wit and biting satire, his fame rests largely on a celebrated compilation of barbed epigrams, The Devil's Dictionary, and a book of short stories (Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, 1891). Most of the 16 selections in this volume have been taken from the latter collection.
The stories in this edition include: What I Saw at Shiloh, A Son of the Gods, Four Days in Dixie, One of the Missing, A Horseman in the Sky, The Coup de Grace, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Story of Conscience, One Kind of Officer, Chickamauga, and five more.
Bierce's stories employ a buildup of suggestive realistic detail to produce grim and vivid tales often disturbing in their mood of fatalism and impending calamity. Hauntingly suggestive, they offer excellent examples of the author's dark pessimism and storytelling power.

History, n. an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools. Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all two. Self-Esteem, n. An erroneous appraisement.
These caustic aphorisms, collected in The Devil's Dictionary, helped earn Ambrose Bierce the epithets Bitter Bierce, the Devil's Lexicographer, and the Wickedest Man in San Francisco. First published as The Cynic's Word Book (1906) and later reissued under its preferred name in 1911, Bierce's notorious collection of barbed definitions forcibly contradicts Samuel Johnson's earlier definition of a lexicographer as a harmless drudge. There was nothing harmless about Ambrose Bierce, and the words he shaped into verbal pitchforks a century ago--with or without the devil's help--can still draw blood today.

A bone-chilling, beautifully produced new collection of 11 uncanny tales from one of the great American masters of the ghost story

Any lover of dark and unsettling tales will be enthralled by the short stories in this collection, all from the pen of the great Ambrose Bierce.

Bierce is often seen as the link between Poe and Lovecraft in the American fantastical tradition, and this collection showcases his mastery of the macabre.

A murder is relived from three startling perspectives; a hunter is driven out of his mind by an invisible, malevolent entity; a man meets a terrifying end in an abandoned house; a werepanther creeps through a window in the dead of night...

Contains:

• The Damned Thing;
• The Moonlit Road;
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge;
• The Death of Halpin Frayser;
• The Suitable Surroundings;
• The Middle Toe of the Right Foot;
• Moxon's Master;
• An Adventure at Brownville;
• The Eyes of the Panther;
• The Spook House;
• An Inhabitant of Carcosa

If we could only put aside our civil pose and say what we really thought, the world would be a lot like the one alluded to in The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary. There, a bore is a person who talks when you wish him to listen, and happiness is an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce's satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book's ninety-year history.

A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.

This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi's exhaustive investigation into the book's writing and publishing history. All of Bierce's known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.

Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

American journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce is probably best known for his short stories about the American Civil War. The author's craft for story-telling is exemplified by his famous An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, which is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer condemned to die by hanging upon the Owl Creek Bridge. That great short story along with 96 others forms this exhaustive edition of The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce.

Enter the realm of humor and satire with Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary. This timeless collection of cynical definitions offers sharp insights into human nature, society and language itself. With biting humor and razor-sharp wit, Bierce exposes the absurdities of life in a devilishly delightful

exploration of the English language.

Ambrose Bierce was one of the strangest phenomena of American letters. The adjectives used to describe his writing -- and character -- tend to have a rather uncomplimentary ring: venomous, vindictive, paranoid, rancorous, malevolent; yet few would deny his brilliance of intellect and style. About half of his fiction output consisted of stories of horror and the supernatural, a genre which appealed to his psychic constitution and may have reflected a deep inner torment.
This volume contains 24 of Bierce's best tales of the unknown. Morbid, cynical, eerie, they take you to a twilight region of flesh and spirit -- and into the darkest recesses of the human mind. These are unusual constructions of terror and grim irony, reminiscent of Poe, the Gothic novel, and the Romantic short story, but having the unmistakable individual stamp of a man who knew first-hand something of the fears and specters which haunt men.
In this volume you will come across a number of old favorites: An Inhabitant of Carcosa, The Eyes of the Panther, The Death of Halpin Frayser, An Adventure at Brownville, and such classics as The Middle Toe of the Right Foot, The Damned Thing, and Moonlit Road, a minor masterpiece in which events of the story are told from three different points of view, including that of the victim as spoken through a medium. You will also find some less familiar, but equally fascinating stories and pieces not available elsewhere, including Visions of the Night, in which Bierce gives us a rationale for his reverse holiness and the surrealistic morality that permeates these writings. Bierce's characters -- possessed poets, shabby aristocrats, grimy professional men, revived corpses, haunted malefactors -- live in a spare, perverse world. Patricide, the revenge of the dead, inexplicable disappearances, dreadful ironies, hypnotism and second sight, and the like, form much of the substance of these unsettling tales.

Can Such Things Still Be?
Complete Literary Guide to the King in Yellow

This book contains the source works that began with Ambrose Bierce's creation of Hastur and Carcosa, were turned into works of madness-inducing terror by Robert W. Chambers which also introduced the King in Yellow and the Yellow Sign, then all those elements were incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos by H. P. Lovecraft. It also includes the work from another author that Chamber's monstrous royal derived his darker deviation from that of Bierce's more humble beginnings - who could it be?

It does NOT include:
**any of the Derleth disasters
**modern works slipped in to try and trick you into reading new Cthulhu Mythos authors
**Call of Cthulhu roleplaying additions
**altered mythologies from the True Detectives show

Presented by the First United Church of Cthulhu, the only real and legally recognized religion based on the works of our Mad Prophet H. P. Lovecraft and the madness and chaos of the Cthulhu Mythos. Check out the church online at FUCC.IT

Bierce was considered a master of pure English by his contemporaries, and virtually everything that came from his pen was notable for its judicious wording and economy of style. He wrote in a variety of literary genres. In addition to his ghost and war stories, he also published several volumes of poetry. His Fantastic Fables anticipated the ironic style of grotesquerie that became a more common genre in the 20th century.

American journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce is one of the most famous and fascinating figures in all of American literature. He led an adventurous and eventful life, beginning with his birth in a log cabin, to his time as a Civil War soldier, followed by his career as an author and journalist, to finally his mysterious disappearance during the Mexican Revolution at age 71. Bierce is perhaps best known for his short stories about the American Civil War, which influenced authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Stephen Crane. He was also an accomplished horror story writer, whose work inspired the tales of H. P. Lovecraft. Bierce's gift for story-telling is exemplified by his famous An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer condemned to die by hanging upon the Owl Creek Bridge. It is one of the most anthologized of American short stories and showcases his cutting wit and talent for irony and surprise. This story, along with numerous others, is collected in this representative edition of The Collected Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

From the beginning of his career, Ambrose Bierce wrote stories of all different types-humorous sketches, satirical squibs, and weird tales. This volume prints some of his most memorable fiction-his tales of psychological and supernatural horror. Bierce was a profound student of the psychology of fear, and his tales depicted human beings succumbing to the fear of death (A Watcher by the Dead), fear of wild animals (The Man and the Snake, The Eyes of the Panther), and the inhumanity of human beings against their own kind (A Holy Terror, A Baby Tramp).

Other tales venture into the supernatural, introducing the notion of revenants (The Death of Halpin Frayser), ghosts (The Moonlit Road), and haunted houses (The Boarded Window). Some stories are forward-looking tales of science fiction (The Damned Thing, Moxon's Master), while others appear to be parodies of the fashionable spiritualism of the day.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) was the leading American writer of weird fiction between Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Having served in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, Bierce settled in San Francisco, where he became a fearless journalist and satirist, attacking corrupt politicians, long-winded clerics, wretched poetasters, and others who incurred his wrath. The stories in this volume are presented in definitive texts based on a consultation of manuscripts and early publications. They are edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Bierce and weird fiction.

Ambrose Bierce's haunting Civil War story An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge has a twist ending that never gets old. The narrative concerns the final thoughts of a Southern planter as Union soldiers are hanging him. In the brief period between the tightening of the noose and the actual breaking of his neck, something happens. The rope breaks, and the man escapes. Or the man imagines he escapes. Which is it? This new edition of An Occurrence of Owl Creek Bridge includes a biography of Ambrose Bierce.