Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 8; Original Published by: The Neale publishing company in 1911 in 400 pages; Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Literary; Fiction / Horror; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Short Stories; Literary Criticism / American / General; ... Read more

Product Description
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). ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: San Francisco : W. E. WoodPublication date: 1903Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great collection but available for free...
It's nice to have a hard copy, but for $79 you may want to opt for the free online copy available at www.gutenberg.org ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: F. J. SchultePublication date: 1892Subjects: Literary Criticism / GeneralFiction / ClassicsFiction / LiteraryFiction / Mystery ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Well done, but not for everyone
This excellent collection of Ambrose Bierce's writing, organized to replace the autobiography he never wrote.

BUT, this is certainly not a biography. Bierce is not always fun to read. If you're looking for a fun biography, look elsewhere. If you've read enough of Bierce's writings to know what you're getting, give this book serious consideration.

Bierce in his own words
This is the first book where the reader is taken through Bierce's life in his own words.From his experiences in the Civil War until his mysterious disappearance into Mexico in 1913, "Sole Survivor" tells Bierce'stale through his stories, newspaper work, and personal correspondence.Amust-have volume for anyone interested in the great American journalist andauthor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Interesting Book
This is a collection of satires written by Ambrose Bierce. The collection containes a number of lesser known short works by the author, all dealing with political satire. Bierce bills himself as another Voltaire or Swift; however, I don't think the writings in this book compare to the works of those authors. Reading the satires in this book reminds me more of the writings of Lucian and the story of the "Adventures of Baron von Munchausen". These later works are more bizzar and off the wall than the former works. A few of the stories come close to the writings of Swift (e.g., "Ashes of the Beacon, "A Scientific Dream", and "Annals of the Future Historian"); however, I found most of the stories not on par with the stories of Voltaire or Swift. There is a reason these stories are not well known and Bierce had a difficult time finding anyone who would publish these.

The best part of the book is the second half of the writings. There are a collection of essays by Bierce with political topics. These elaborate on many of the ideas touched on in the stories.

I am a huge fan of Bierce (along with Mark Twain), I was hoping to find some rare gems with this collection. I have used Swift for years in my AP European history classes, I was hoping to find something usable from Bierce in my AP U.S. history classes - but in the end, I really found nothing I can use. The collection is interesting and if you are a Bierce fan, you should read these stories, especially the essays.

Overall good collection, but will be of interest most to those individuals who are Bierce fans, or fans of satire. Reminds me more of Lucian rather than Voltaire or Swift.

Shall not perish from the earth?
It seems incredible that much of the work in this volume has not been widely available since the publication of Bierce's Collected Works more than ninety years ago. It seems particularly incredible in the case of the two long satires, "Ashes of the Beacon" and "The Land Beyond the Blow", since these constitute perhaps his most sustained attack on the absurdities of American society, and contain some of his most pointed and iconoclastic writing. Bierce himself seems to have held them in high regard, but until the Collected Works no publisher took an interest. "The Land Beyond the Blow" is a voyage to strange lands, undertaken courtesy of a large hairy fist applied to the narrator's eye; the various customs and other foibles of the peoples encountered serve to parody the government, judiciary, public taste, dog lovers, etc., etc., of Bierce's own time and place. "Ashes of the Beacon" purports to be "An Historical Monograph Written in 4930" and gives a few indications concerning the lamentable failure of "self-government" in America. It is less amusing and more analytical; and while practically everyone will find much in it to disagree with, there is also plenty to think about. Though generally conservative (with some startling exceptions) and frequently pigheaded, Bierce is neither a fool nor a hypocrite, and he makes his points with thoroughgoing clarity. His work as a whole is (among many other things) a lifelong battle against woolly thinking, murky logic and bad writing, and the pieces in The Fall of the Republic are no exception. Besides the long satires, the book includes a number of short essays on such topics as capital punishment (which Bierce favours), insurance (which he does not favour), temperance (which he demolishes completely) and the Decay of the Nose (upon which he is coolly judicious and commendably straight-faced). A further section is devoted to the Annals of the Future Historian, a series of pieces in which the Future Historian's misconceptions and presuppositions serve to point the reader towards uncomfortable questions not only about the present but, by implication, about the possible misconceptions and presuppositions embedded in our own perception of history. There is also a scholarly and sympathetic critical introduction by the editors who, in hunting out this work and making it available to a general readership, have done satire, literature and the rest of us an immense service. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent
Today, if known at all, Ambrose Bierce is recalled as that guy who wrote that funny book The Devil's Dictionary. He was seen, and still is seen, as a sort of poor man's Mark Twain. This is quite unfair, as he was a marvelous writer in his own right, although not with the depth nor wit that Twain possessed. Part of the problem is that his personal life, strong opinions, and bitter biases (he loathed Oscar Wilde, for example), have led to his marginalization. Yet, Bierce was a master of the short story form- every bit the equal or superior of more lauded contemporaries like Guy de Maupassant, or O. Henry. Mostly, it is in the horror or thriller vein that his tales fall, but his best work, in my opinion, can be found in his marvelous tales of the Civil War....These are simply riveting tales, far more modern than his contemporaries work, and most of this is due to Bierce's journalistic background (he worked for William Randolph Hearst at the San Francisco Examiner). About the only thing that keeps the tales from a full claim on modernity is Bierce's penchant for twist endings, rather than the more naturalistic zero endings that Anton Chekhov pioneered, and others ran with. Still, the description that Bierce paints- of lives, deaths, moments, and battles, are rich, horrific, and vivid. His characters are usually merely servants to the overall narrative- another `throwback' trait of pre-modern fiction, but ask yourself- is there a character in all of Donald Barthelme's or Rick Moody's writing that is not cardboard? Bierce was simply not attempting great character portraits, in general, so to hold him up to that standard is not tenable. By every other measure, though, his tales could have been penned by a modern writer covering Vietnam or the two Iraq wars....The stories are first rate, and mustr reading fore anyone enamored of short stories, or those just interested in American history, or the Civil War. As for the man himself? In 1913, after a series of personal setbacks- deaths of sons and a divorce, he set out for Mexico to cover Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. His last written words were: `Goodbye, if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it a pretty good way to depart this life.It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs.To be a Gringo in Mexico- ah, that is euthanasia!' It is fitting that such an enigmatic man and writer would leave such an epitaph, but that is not his legacy. These great stories are- read, learn, but most of all enjoy.

Great condition Fast professionaql packing AAAAAAA++++
Great book of Bierce's Civil War short stories. Relevant reading in this new age of war

Wars Were Brutal Long Before TV Discovered Them
No matter what it is called, be it the Civil War, the War Between the States or the War of Southern Secession, the time period 1861-65 was one of the most bloody, destructive and emotionally and ideologically charged periods in U.S. history. And no contemporary author had a better grasp of it than Union comabt veteran Ambrose Bierce, whose stories in this short but riveting collection are not dry historical abstractions nor a cold analysis of the decisions of senior leaders, but a graphic record of the everday sweat, endless terror and cruel, surreal absurdity of armed conflict.

From the eerie "Incident at the Owl Creek Bridge" to the gripping "Parker Adderson, Philosopher," Bierce honed the unique literary and expressive skills that served him well as a corrosive and controversial San Francisco newspaper columnist and astonishingly effective writer on horror and the occult. War to "Bitter Bierce" was the purest expression of the basic animal survival instinct; hardened and warped by endless fear, by the power of technological advances in weaponry and the stress and repeated brutality that turned ordinary human beings into ruthless killers--to the point where ideology and the color of the uniform no longer mattered.

Bierce's experiences and deep cynicism soon led him to believe thathuman beings, despite all of their apparent gifts, in reality could do little more than create brutal and meaningless tragedies. "War is a byproduct of the arts of peace," he was reported to have said, but these stories, a product of a bygone era, remain curiously contemporary because they tell us about everyday people--not unlike ourselves despite more than a century of difference--who fought a war, that, in light of the issues it raised and the multiple cultural forces it unleashed or redirected, has never really ended. ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook contains 19 ghostly short stories by American short story writer, journalist, and storyteller Ambrose Bierce.Bierce is widely remembered for his satirical THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY and his numerous short stories.

Bierce disappeared during the Mexican Revolution in 1913 while accompanying the army of Pancho Villa.His disappearance remains a mystery to this day.


Contents

The Ways of Ghosts
Present at a Hanging
A Cold Greeting
A Wireless Message
An Arrest
Soldier-Folk
A Man with Two Lives
Three and One are One
A Baffled Ambuscade
Two Military Executions
Some Haunted Houses
The Isle of Pines
A Fruitless Assignment
A Vine on a House
At Old Man Eckert's
The Spook House
The Other Lodgers
The Thing at Nolan
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
An Unfinished Race
Charles Ashmore's Trail
Science to the Front
... Read more

Product Description
Volume III of the "Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce" (title: "Can Such Things Be?") is a facsimile reprint of the 250-copy limited edition of 1910. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
GRAPHIC CLASSICS is a series of books presenting great fiction adapted in comics and heavily-illustrated text for readers of all ages.Each volume contains the works of one classic author, illustrated by some of the best artists working today in the fields of comics, book illustration and fine arts.

GRAPHIC CLASSICS: AMBROSE BIERCE features comics adaptations of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "An Imperfect Conflagration", "The Stranger", and seven other Bierce stories. Plus selections from "The Devil's Dictionary", and a collection of 29 illustrated "Fables". Also, "The Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce, by Mort Castle and Dan Burr, with an introduction by S.T. Joshi. Other artists include Rick Geary, Gahan Wilson, John Coulthart, Leslie Murray, Francesca Ghermandi, Dan O'Neill, Skip Williamson, Shary Flenniken, Lance Tooks, Anton Emdin and Johnny Ryan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good comix
The graphics and story are pretty true to the originals that I have read.The stories are condensed a bit, and are easier to digest for young folks.

Excellent motivator to read more/complete works of this author
I purchased this for my 7 yr old as he likes reading graphic novels.It is somewhat mature for a 7 year old, but certainly more interesting than what most 7yr olds could typically read.I've read it, too and have started branching out a bit into Bierce's work.I would recommend all the graphic classics.

Cowboy ghosts, the Devil's tongue, and Fables of a Cynic
Of all the Graphic Classics series that I have read, Ambrose Bierce is the author that I am least familiar with.I knew him as the author of "The Devil's Dictionary," and I knew the story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" although I did not know he was the author.In fact, I knew it mainly as an episode of "The Twilight Zone." With this in mind, it was one of the most exciting volumes to explore, as I was discovering the author and his writings for the first time, through the Graphic Classics vehicle.

First off, the very cool cover was definitely a lure for this lesser-known author.Satan sipping blood cocktails and going over the latest entries in his dictionary was just too good to pass up. Due to the short nature of Bierce's stories, there is a much wider variety of styles and interpretations inside the book.It is almost too much to take in one sitting, and I found myself reading a story here and there instead of straight through. With so much variation, not everything is going to please, but overall I was completely entertained by the author and the artists.

This volume contains:

"The Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce" - A nice biographical piece.Even more interesting as I knew nothing of the story and little of Ambrose Bierce himself.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" - An excellent adaptation of his most-famous story, using what looks like computer graphics.Very shadowy and with a nice feel.

"The Race at Left Bower" - A funny little bit, with amusing illustrations.

"The Devil's Dictionary" - A selection of entries from the cynical author, juxtaposed with Leslie Murray's own cynical brand of humor.Very nicely done.

"An Imperfect Conflagration" - Victorian horror illustrator Rick Geary handles this tale of a father-and-son thief team, murder and a fireproof cabinet.Exactly up Geary's alley.

"The Stranger" - An old west ghost tale, fully illustrated in the style of 1950's Western comics.Chilling.

"One Summer Night" - A grave robber's tale.Surrealistic illustrations add to the grim, short tale.

"Moxon's Master"-Cautionary Sci Fi, a text-and-pictures piece with art-deco illustrations that look as if they came from a fashion magazine.Not my favorite tale over all.

"Bierce's Fables" - The ultimate mixed bag.29 stories by just as many different artists.Something to please, and something to annoy, everyone.Just the way Bierce would have liked it, I imagine.

"The Boarded Window" - Gahan Wilson handles this odd tale of the dead and not dead.Almost like "The Fall of the House of Usher" in a log cabin.

"The Hypnotist" - An odd tale, with an odd artist.A good combination.

"Oil of Dog" - One of my favorites.Great, gloomy illustrations perfectly compliment a disturbing tale of baby-killers and Oil Makers.

"Curried Cow" - Not the food dish, curry, as I was expecting.A twist-ending funny story, with cartoonish illustrations by Milton Knight.

A Very Mixed Bag
I'm a big fan of graphic storytelling and a big fan of Bierce, but not a particularly big fan of this volume. This is the first of the "Graphic Classics" series I've come across, and I like the concept of harnessing a wide range of underground cartooning talent in the service of great literature of the past. This showcase for Bierce begins promisingly enough, with a well-written biographical introduction by S.T. Joshi, supported by a cartoony four pages about Bierce's legendary disappearance. This is followed by John Coulhart's lovely ten page adaptation of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", a story widely read in American high schools.

Alas, from here on, it's a much more mixed bag. A forgettably sketched five page adaptation of "The Race at Left Bower" is followed by six pages of entries from "The Devil's Dictionary" which are broken up with lame graphics from greeting card illustrator Leslie Murray. "An Imperfect Conflagration" is a great story, but Rich Geary's eleven pages of panels doesn't quite do it justice. Conversely, "The Stranger" is only a so-so story, but Mark Nelson's seven pages of stark, high-contrast art gives it some real atmosphere. Francesca Ghermandi brings a European sensibility to the grave robber story "One Summer Night", but it doesn't really work. "Moxon's Master" is the longest read, with some ten text-heavy pages with one or two inset illustrations per page. These are by Stanley Shaw, and while they're nice in a mid-'90s comic book style, there's not a whole lot in the text for him to work with.

Next are a bunch of Bierce's "Fables"--29 spread out over 36 pages of wildly varying style and quality. These encompass artists from the US, Canada, England, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Australia. The best of these are probably those by Skip Williamson, Simon Gane, William Brown, and Lesley Reppeteaux. Following these are four more stories, including "The Boarded Window" and "The Hypnotist", neither of which are illustrated in a style I found compelling. "Oil of Dog" is a dark, dark story, with suitably gloomy and evocative art by Annie Owens. "Curried Cow" ends things on a bad note, with goofy cartoony panels by Milton Knight.

On the whole, if you're interested in the work of Ambrose Bierce, you're better off thumbing through a copy of The Devil's Dictionary or picking up a volume of his complete short stories. Fan's of the graphic medium will find such a variety of art that something is bound to please, even if much else isn't.

Tales of war, satire, the occult, and more
Graphic Classics is a rousing and impressive anthology of the illustrated stories by Ambrose Bierce, tales of war, satire, the occult, and more. Bringing together contributions from a very wide variety of artists, Graphic Classics features sharp wit, biting insight, and a vast range of illustrative styles. Enhanced with an Introduction by S. T. Joshi, Graphic Classics is very highly recommended for graphic novel enthusiasts, and a "must read" for the legions of fans of the literary legacy of Ambrose Bierce. ... Read more

Product Description
Of the many causes that conspired to bring about the lamentable failure of “self-government” in ancient America the most general and comprehensive was, of course, the impracticable nature of the system itself. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Supernatural; Horror tales, American; War stories, American; Soldiers; United States; Supernatural/ Fiction; Horror tales, American; War stories, American; United States - History - Civil War, 1861-1865; Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Horror; Fiction / War ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ambrose Bierce Is Always a Delight
There are several volumes of Bierce's works available for the Amazon Kindle. I have always been in awe of Bierce's writing. Unless he is the greatest liar of the nineteenth century in America, he lived a full life and happily chronicled most of it for us. What he did not chronicle, he presented as fiction. It's not always easy to separate the reality from the contrived, but he is an absolute delight to read. ... Read more

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EPIGRAMS ON WITH THE DANCE NEGLIGIBLE TALES ... Read more

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One of the most insightful writings on war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent
Today, if known at all, Ambrose Bierce is recalled as that guy who wrote that funny book The Devil's Dictionary. He was seen, and still is seen, as a sort of poor man's Mark Twain. This is quite unfair, as he was a marvelous writer in his own right, although not with the depth nor wit that Twain possessed. Part of the problem is that his personal life, strong opinions, and bitter biases (he loathed Oscar Wilde, for example), have led to his marginalization. Yet, Bierce was a master of the short story form- every bit the equal or superior of more lauded contemporaries like Guy de Maupassant, or O. Henry. Mostly, it is in the horror or thriller vein that his tales fall, but his best work, in my opinion, can be found in his marvelous tales of the Civil War....These are simply riveting tales, far more modern than his contemporaries work, and most of this is due to Bierce's journalistic background (he worked for William Randolph Hearst at the San Francisco Examiner). About the only thing that keeps the tales from a full claim on modernity is Bierce's penchant for twist endings, rather than the more naturalistic zero endings that Anton Chekhov pioneered, and others ran with. Still, the description that Bierce paints- of lives, deaths, moments, and battles, are rich, horrific, and vivid. His characters are usually merely servants to the overall narrative- another `throwback' trait of pre-modern fiction, but ask yourself- is there a character in all of Donald Barthelme's or Rick Moody's writing that is not cardboard? Bierce was simply not attempting great character portraits, in general, so to hold him up to that standard is not tenable. By every other measure, though, his tales could have been penned by a modern writer covering Vietnam or the two Iraq wars....The stories are first rate, and mustr reading fore anyone enamored of short stories, or those just interested in American history, or the Civil War. As for the man himself? In 1913, after a series of personal setbacks- deaths of sons and a divorce, he set out for Mexico to cover Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. His last written words were: `Goodbye, if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it a pretty good way to depart this life.It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs.To be a Gringo in Mexico- ah, that is euthanasia!' It is fitting that such an enigmatic man and writer would leave such an epitaph, but that is not his legacy. These great stories are- read, learn, but most of all enjoy. ... Read more

Product Description
Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842 and mysteriously disappeared in 1914. During his lifetime, he was a controversial and prolific writer, and there is a growing interest in his work. His experiences as a Union soldier during the Civil War provided him with material for some of the best American war literature ever written. In addition to his war stories, he wrote tales of the supernatural and a vast body of newspaper columns, which are among the most venomous and daring ever published. This reference is a guide to his life and writings. Along with a chronology, the volume includes several hundred alphabetically arranged entries on Bierce's major works and characters and on historical persons and writers who figured prominently in his life. Many of the entries supply bibliographic information, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An underwhelming effort
I was deeply disappointed by this book. The entries on individual stories don't provide basic bibliographical information about first publication or subsequent appearances. Entries consist of facile plot summaries with next to nothing by way of critical insight or biographical context. I'm astounded such a feeble work was even published. The work of S. T. Joshi on Bierce is far more substantial on both bibliographical and biographical issues. The only use for such a book as this is if you can't remember in which story a particular character appears. ... Read more