The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce

The celebrated short stories of Ambrose Bierce, a writer known for his biting wit and acerbic asides toward literary and public figures, are published here in their entirety.

Early in life, Ambrose Bierce served in the American Civil War: it was an experience which profoundly changed his personality and outlook on life. Situated in the thick of battle, it was there that the young Bierce was exposed to the horrors of war; witnessing men in their hundreds torn to shreds on the battlefield amid cacophony, chaos and carnage.

Rendered bitter and cynical by these experiences, Bierce would nevertheless draw upon them to author several of his best and most lauded short stories. The Battle of Shiloh, about which Bierce wrote with a fierce realism, is represented in several of his works. Together, the twenty-five war tales he authored have been termed one of the greatest anti-war documents ever produced by an American.

Although aspects of Bierce's language and style belong to their time, his capacity for creating an urgent and compulsively readable narrative remains clear. Favoring the horror genre, it was the use of the weird and the eerie layered over the factual occurrences of war that gripped readers, placing them amid a sustained terror of confused combat. In the 20th century, this genre would gain the title of 'psychological horror' and become even more prominent.

Many of Ambrose Bierce's later stories are more overtly horrific, and the later ones contain elements of the fantastical. For his part, Bierce despised the intellectual pretensions which he felt were widely held by authors and readers alike. Cresting upon his literary prowess in the early 20th century, Bierce voiced an express desire to shock and dislodge his reader's psyches from the safe ground of intellectualism.

Since their original publication, Bierce's stories have been adapted for the screen, with the Twilight Zone adapting one of his most acclaimed: An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge. This and other stories have also been adapted for the theatre. Some of these productions allude to the notorious and bizarre disappearance and presumed death of Ambrose Bierce in 1914; an event which remains unexplained to this day.

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.