Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

For the first time in publishing history, Delphi Classics is proud to present the complete works of master storyteller Ambrose Bierce. This comprehensive eBook is spiced with numerous illustrations, rare and forgotten texts, concise introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Bierce's life and works Concise introductions to the collections and other texts The rare novella THE DANCE OF DEATH appears here for the first time in digital print ALL the short story collections, with individual contents tables Featuring 475 tales, many appearing for the first time in digital print Images of how the books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts Excellent formatting of the texts Famous works such as COBWEBS FROM AN EMPTY SKULL are fully illustrated with their original artwork Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry, essays and the short stories Easily locate the works you want to read The complete non-fiction, with many scarce essays and newspaper articles Includes Bierce's letters - spend hours exploring the author’s personal correspondence Special criticism section, with essays evaluating Bierce’s contribution to literature Also provides a unique ‘Biercian Texts’ section with interesting articles on the works and disappearance of Ambrose Bierce Features a bonus full-length biography - discover Bierce's literary life Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres CONTENTS: The Novellas THE DANCE OF DEATH THE MONK AND THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER THE LAND BEYOND THE BLOW The Short Story Collections THE FIEND’S DELIGHT COBWEBS FROM AN EMPTY SKULL PRESENT AT A HANGING, AND OTHER GHOST STORIES IN THE MIDST OF LIFE: TALES OF SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS CAN SUCH THINGS BE? FANTASTIC FABLES NEGLIGIBLE TALES THE PARENTICIDE CLUB THE FOURTH ESTATE THE OCEAN WAVE KINGS OF BEASTS TWO ADMINISTRATIONS MISCELLANEOUS TALES The Short Stories LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Poetry Collections BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER SHAPES OF CLAY FABLES IN RHYME SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS THE SCRAP HEAP The Poems LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Non-Fiction THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL, AND OTHER ESSAYS THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY WRITE IT RIGHT ASHES OF THE BEACON “ON WITH THE DANCE!”: A REVIEW A CYNIC LOOKS AT LIFE TANGENTIAL VIEWS BITS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES AND REVIEWS UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS The Essays LIST OF ESSA
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A Son of the Gods, and A Horseman in the Sky

A Son of the Gods, and A Horseman in the Sky

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

Brilliant and magnetic as are these two studies by Ambrose Bierce, and especially significant as coming from one who was a boy soldier in the Civil War, they merely reflect one side of his original and many-faceted genius. Poet, critic, satirist, fun-maker, incomparable writer of fables and masterly prose sketches, a seer of startling insight, a reasoner mercilessly logical, with the delicate wit and keenness of an Irving or an Addison, the dramatic quality of a Hugo,—all of these, and still in the prime of his powers; yet so restricted has been his output and so little exploited that only the judicious few have been impressed. Although an American, he formed his bent years ago in London, where he was associated with the younger Hood on Fun. There he laid the foundation for that reputation which he today enjoys: the distinction of being the last of the scholarly satirists. With that training he came to San Francisco, where, in an environment equally as genial, his talent grew and mellowed through the years. Then he was summoned to New York to assist a newspaper fight against a great railroad, since the conclusion of which brilliant campaign eastern journalism and magazine work have claimed his attention.
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The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.)

The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.)

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like to see the passing, in town or country; but each has his own unaccountable taste. The proprietor, who seemed to be also the architect of the new house, superintended the various details of the work with an assiduity that gave me a high opinion of his intelligence and executive ability, and I congratulated myself on the prospect of having some very agreeable neighbors. It was quite early in the spring, if I remember, when they moved into the cottage—a newly married couple, evidently: the wife very young, pretty, and with the air of a lady; the husband somewhat older, but still in the first flush of manhood. It was understood in the village that they came from Baltimore; but no one knew them personally, and they brought no letters of introduction. (For obvious reasons, I refrain from mentioning names.) It was clear that, for the present at least, their own company was entirely sufficient for them. They made no advance toward the acquaintance of any of the families in the neighborhood, and consequently were left to themselves. That, apparently, was what they desired, and why they came to Ponkapog. For after its black bass and wild duck and teal, solitude is the chief staple of Ponkapog. Perhaps its perfect rural loveliness should be included. Lying high up under the wing of the Blue Hills, and in the odorous breath of pines and cedars, it chances to be the most enchanting bit of unlaced disheveled country within fifty miles of Boston, which, moreover, can be reached in half an hour\'s ride by railway. But the nearest railway station (Heaven be praised!) is two miles distant, and the seclusion is without a flaw. Ponkapog has one mail a day; two mails a day would render the place uninhabitable. The village—it looks like a compact village at a distance, but unravels and disappears the moment you drive into it—has quite a large floating population. I do not allude to the perch and pickerel in Ponkapog Pond. Along the Old Bay Road, a highway even in the Colonial days, there are a number of attractive villas and cottages straggling off toward Milton, which are occupied for the summer by people from the city. These birds of passage are a distinct class from the permanent inhabitants, and the two seldom closely assimilate unless there has been some previous connection. It seemed to me that our new neighbors were to come under the head of permanent inhabitants; they had built their own house, and had the air of intending to live in it all the year round. "Are you not going to call on them?" I asked my wife one morning. "When they call on us," she replied lightly. "But it is our place to call first, they being strangers." This was said as seriously as the circumstance demanded; but my wife turned it off with a laugh, and I said no more, always trusting to her intuitions in these matters....
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge\' is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce. It is one of the best classic tales filled with detail and vision. This story inspires the imagination, then provides one of the best twists ever invented. The story is set in the time of the Civil War. It is famous for its irregular time sequence and twisted end. Bierce\'s abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is considered an early example of experimentation with stream of consciousness. It is one of Bierce\'s most anthologized stories.
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The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs

The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

A veteran of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, Ambrose Bierce went on to become one of the darkest and most death haunted of American writers, the blackest of black humorists. This volume gathers the most celebrated and significant of Bierce's writings. In the Midst of Life (Tales of Soldiers and Civilians), his collection of short fiction about the Civil War, which includes the masterpieces "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "Chickamauga," is suffused with a fiercely ironic sense of the horror and randomness of war. Can Such Things Be? brings together "The Death of Halpin Frayser," "The Damned Thing," "The Moonlit Road," and other tales of terror that make Bierce the genre's most significant American practitioner between Poe and Lovecraft. The Devil's Dictionary, the brilliant lexicon of subversively cynical definitions on which Bierce worked for decades, displays to the full his corrosive wit. In Bits of Autobiography,... A veteran of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, Ambrose Bierce went on to become one of the darkest and most death haunted of American writers, the blackest of black humorists. This volume gathers the most celebrated and significant of Bierce's writings. *In the Midst of Life (Tales of Soldiers and Civilians)*, his collection of short fiction about the Civil War, which includes the masterpieces "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "Chickamauga," is suffused with a fiercely ironic sense of the horror and randomness of war. *Can Such Things Be?* brings together "The Death of Halpin Frayser," "The Damned Thing," "The Moonlit Road," and other tales of terror that make Bierce the genre's most significant American practitioner between Poe and Lovecraft. *The Devil's Dictionary*, the brilliant lexicon of subversively cynical definitions on which Bierce worked for decades, displays to the full his corrosive wit. In *Bits of Autobiography*, the series of memoirs that includes the memorable "What I Saw of Shiloh," he recreates his experiences in the war and its aftermath. The volume is rounded out with a selection of his best uncollected stories. Acclaimed Bierce scholar S. T. Joshi provides detailed notes and a newly researched chronology of Bierce's life and mysterious disappearance.
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Civil War Stories

Civil War Stories

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

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.
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The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 1

The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 1

Ambrose Bierce

Short Stories / Nonfiction / Poetry

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-1914) was an American editorialist, journalist, short-story writer and satirist, today best known for his The Devil's Dictionary (1911). He wrote some of his books under the pseudonyms Dod Grile and J. Milton Sloluck. Bierce's lucid, unsentimental style has kept him popular when many of his contemporaries have been consigned to oblivion. His dark, sardonic views and vehemence as a critic earned him the nickname, "Bitter Bierce. " Such was his reputation that it was said his judgment on any piece of prose or poetry could make or break a writer's career. His short stories are considered 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, Killed at Resaca, and Chickamauga. His works include: The Fiend's Delight (1873), Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874), Black Beetles in Amber (1892), Fantastic Fables (1899), Shapes of Clay (1903), A Son of the Gods, and A Horseman in the Sky (1907), Write It Right (1909) and A Cynic Looks at Life (1912).
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