Ambrose (Gwinett) Bierce - Early life and military career, Journalism, Literary works, Disappearance, Bibliography

Writer, journalist, and editor, born in Meigs Co, Ohio, USA. His service in the Civil War provided him with both material for some of his finest stories and the disillusioned attitude that coloured much of his writing. After the war he went to San Francisco, where he worked as an editor while writing for various magazines (1866–72). He then spent three years in London as an editor (1872–5) and published many stories, old and new. Returning to San Francisco as an editor and newspaper columnist (1887–96), ‘Bitter Bierce’ became the West Coast's leading (and dictatorial) literary arbiter before going to Washington, DC as a correspondent for the Hearst newspapers (1897–1909). In 1906 he published Cynic's Word Book (later retitled The Devil's Dictionary), a collection of his sardonic-ironic definitions. Never at ease in America, he set off for Mexico in 1913, apparently to find Pancho Villa, the Mexican rebel, and was last seen that December, but it is not known exactly when and how he died.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842–1914?) was an American satirist, critic, social commentator, poet, short story writer, editor, and journalist.

His clear unsentimental style has kept him popular when many of his contemporaries have become obscure.

Early life and military career

Bierce was born in a rural area of Meigs County, Ohio and lived during his adolescence in the town of Elkhart, Indiana.

At the outset of the American Civil War, Bierce enlisted in the Ninth Regiment, Indiana Volunteers, as part of the Union Army. Bierce fought at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, a terrifying experience that profoundly shocked him and became a source for several later short stories, including "What I Saw of Shiloh."

His military career, however, resumed when, in the summer of 1866, he rejoined Gen.

Journalism

In San Francisco, Bierce received the rank of brevet Major before resigning from the Army.

The McKinley accusation

Because of his penchant for biting social criticism and satire, Bierce's long newspaper career was often steeped in controversy. One of the most notable of these incidents occurred following the assassination of President William McKinley when Hearst's opponents turned a poem Bierce had written about the assassination of Governor Goebel in 1900 into a cause célèbre. Bierce meant his poem, written on the occasion of the assassination of Governor William Goebel of Kentucky, to express a national mood of dismay and fear, but after McKinley was shot in 1901 it seemed to foreshadow the crime:

"The bullet that pierced Goebel's breast Can not be found in all the West;

Literary works

His short stories are considered among the best of the 19th century, providing a popular following based on his roots.

Bierce was reckoned 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.

One of Bierce's most famous works is his much-quoted book, The Devil's Dictionary, originally a newspaper serialization which was first published in book form in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book. It offers an interesting reinterpretation of the English language in which cant and political double-talk are neatly lampooned.

Bierce's twelve-volume Collected Works were published in 1909, the seventh volume of which consists solely of The Devil's Dictionary, the title Bierce himself preferred to The Cynic's Word Book.

Disappearance

In October 1913, the septuagenarian Bierce departed Washington on a tour to revisit his old Civil War battlefields.

In one of his last letters, Bierce wrote:

"Good-bye — if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life.

Bibliography

Books

Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874) Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (also known as In the Midst of Life) (1892) The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter (1892) Can Such Things Be? (1893) The Devil's Dictionary (1911) (originally The Cynic's Word Book (1906)) Collected Works (1909)

Short stories

The Haunted Valley (1871) An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1887) One of the Missing (1888) The Boarded Window (1891) Chickamauga (1891) The Eyes of the Panther (1891) Haita the Shepherd (1891) The Man and the Snake (1891) The Middle Toe of the Right Foot (1891) An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1891) The Suitable Surroundings (1891) A Tough Tussle (1891) A Watcher by the Dead (1891) An Adventure at Brownville (1893) A Baby Tramp (1893) Bodies of the Dead (1893) The Death of Halpin Frayser (1893) The Famous Gilson Bequest (1893) John Bartine's Watch (1893) The Night-Doings at 'Deadman's' (1893) A Psychological Shipwreck (1893) The Realm of the Unreal (1893) The Secret of Macarger's Gulch (1893) The Damned Thing (1894) A Vine on a House (1905) The Moonlit Road (1907)

Beyond the Wall (1909) A Diagnosis of Death (1909) A Jug of Syrup (1909) Moxon's Master (1909) Staley Fleming's Hallucination (1909) The Stranger (1909) The Way of Ghosts (1909) The Affair at Coulter's Notch An Affair of Outposts The Applicant The Baptism of Dobsho A Bottomless Grave The City of the Gone Away The Coup de Grace Curried Cow The Failure of Hope and Wandel George Thurston A Holy Terror A Horseman in the Sky The Hypnotist An Imperfect Conflagration The Ingenious Patriot John Mortonson's Funeral Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General Killed at Resaca A Lady from Redhorse

The Little Story The Major's Tale The Man Out of the Nose The Mocking-Bird The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter Mr Swiddler's Flip-Flap My Favourite Murder Mysterious Disappearances Oil of Dog One Kind of Officer One of Twins One Officer, One Man One Summer Night Parker Adderson, Philosopher Perry Chumly's Eclipse A Providential Intimation The Race at Left Bower A Resumed Identity A Revolt of the Gods Some Haunted Houses A Son of the Gods The Story of a Conscience The Tail of the Sphinx Visions of the Night The Widower Turmore