Original Ambrose Bierce Site

“Camels and Christians accept their burdens kneeling.”

AMBROSE BIERCE (June 24,1842–?) Once upon a time, there was a brave soldier. His specialty was going in front of the Union armies with small units and making maps and sketches of the tricky spots on the proposed route, under fire. But he is not famous for this.

Then he went West, exploring, and made the first maps of the Black Hills that were useful. He taught himself to write by reading the classics at a boring job at the San Francisco Mint, and broke into newspaper work. He became the top columnist in San Francisco in a time when the writer stood behind his work with a gun, not a lawyer. He married rich, went to England, learned a lot from the writers there, and taught some tricks himself. But this is just a footnote.

He wrote the first Civil War fiction that included the terror and put the glory in its place. It was so good that a whole generation of professional officers became abject fans. And every time the press fomented a war fever, he wrote on military subjects with a stark clarity that never forgot that the final result would be flowing blood and shattered bone. But this is poorly remembered.

He wrote fine poetry, often to a deadline, and trained a generation of poets -- became a sort of literary cult leader. But this is a matter for English professors.

And he was funny politically, too, always opposed to demagogy and privilege alike, showing no faith that the common man could command politics, or the rich man transcend his greed. Split the difference between George Orwell and Herbert Spencer and you might approach the ideas of this writer who reached millions through the Hearst press. But this interests very few.

Thus, Ambrose Bierce is best remembered today because nobody knows what happened to him. He went into the whirlpool of the Mexican Revolution in December 1913, and never popped up. He was good at writing spooky stories, and four or five have been hitched to his star. — Leon Day

FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST FOR WHAT YOU
NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AMBROSE BIERCE

✔ Latest Bierce News click here
✔ Bierce Biography click here
✔ Bierce Disappearance click here

✔ Civil War Bierce click here

✔ Literary Bierce click here

✔ Bierce in the Arts click here

✔ Bierce in Film click here

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ONE-HOUR RADIO SHOW DEVOTED TO AMBROSE BIERCE

Guests:

S.T. Joshi, editor of The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, & Memoirs

Cathy Davidson, professor at Duke University and a Bierce scholar.

Felix Justice, actor playing Ambrose Bierce, re-imagined as a contemporary black man in the one-man show, "The Miraculous Return Of Ambrose Bierce"

Bart Schneider, publisher at Kelly's Cove Press and playwright of "The Miraculous Return Of Ambrose Bierce"

to listen to broadcast of Nov. 29, 2011 click HERE

Library of America Publishes
Anniversary Bierce Title

New Press Issues Two Bierce Titles

Click HERE for details

Kudos for Bierce Tale Staged by Long Beach Opera

Robin T. Buck as "Andrew"

Based on the Bierce story "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field," the opera was produced by the Long Beach [California] Opera in June 2011. Composed by David Lang, libretto by Marc Wellman, the opera was originally performed in 2002 by the Kronos Quartet in San Francisco.

Opera details HERE.

Review by John Farrell in the Long Beach Press-Telegram HERE.

Review in the Los Angeles Times HERE.

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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AMBROSE BIERCE APPRECIATION SOCIETY?
The Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society was, presumably, the first Bierce site on the Internet: 1994. It is now moribund, yet, incredibly, still scores high in Google's Bierce rankings -- although it has not been updated for many years, and is in most respects obsolete. Apparently, its last update was in 2005 or early 2006.

In May, 2010, I sought out the once enthusiastic founder of the Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society, "Damone," the pseudonym of Michael N. Rusignulogo, a fellow New Yorker. Michael apparently attended Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, and his last known address was on West 20th Street, New York City. He once hosted a website dedicated to Conan O'Brien [a TV talk show host]. After many attempts, I finally reached Mr. Rusignulogo (Damone) by email and, while he was not particularly forthcoming, here is his reply:

Don, I apologise for not writing back sooner. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but I suppose the short version is that "life got in the way." Things changed, priorities shifted, tragedies occurred, etc. etc. I certainly still have all my Bierce materials and still add the odd bits and pieces here and there, but a few years ago, certain events occurred that prevented me from devoting too much time to the hobby, and the longer I spent away, the more time it would take to catch up, and it all began to snowball.

It all still sits as an item "to do," but at this point, the Web technologies I used are so obsolete as to require a complete rebuild of the site to make it more database driven so as to make updates easier and the like. And the time is more precious now than then. I still hope to find a stretch of time to devote to the project, but things continue to come up. It seems the way of things.

I certainly apologise if I was unresponsive on an invitation at some point in the past. It was surely not my intension to do so, and I beg ignorance in the subsequent passage of time.

I hope this finds you well, and I hope that you have been more successful in finding the time to update your own Web effort better than I have.

Michael

A pity that "life got into the way." Mr. Rusignulogo's Bierce site was, in fact, a prototype for The Ambrose Bierce Site (1996), although the AB Site went into a far different direction by focusing on original material. -- D.S.

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Ambrose Bierce Site Founder
Wins Pearl S. Buck International Short Story Award

Don Swaim, founder of the Ambrose Bierce Site, won first prize for his short story, "Dearest Friend, Annie," which focuses on the relationship between Walt Whitman and Anne Gilchrist. Three others placed in the youth division. Swaim [above] is shown accepting the award under a portrait of Pearl S. Buck at the historic Buck house on April 10, 2011. Buck, author of The Good Earth, won the Nobel Prize for literature, and her Pennsylvania, home is a National Historic Landmark. Pearl S. Buck International

Don Swaim's definitive article, "Ambrose & Henry," is in the spring 2011 edition of the online scholarly publication Menckeniana, all about H.L. Mencken, published by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore. To read the actual issue go to: Menckeniana. Courtesy Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore.

AVOID ANSWERS.COM AS AN ACCURATE SOURCE FOR BIERCE

STUDENTS BEWARE
1. Bierce is NOT best known as the author of A Fiend's Delight.

2. Bierce did NOT "establish his reputation" with A Fiend's Delight and Cobwebs from an Empty Skull.

3. A Fiend's Delight and Cobwebs from an Empty Skull are NOT novels.

4. Bierce did NOT work "off and on" for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. He was employed steadily by Hearst from 1887 through 1908.

5. Bierce was NOT known for his "legendary carousing" with Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken. He is thought to have had, at the most, two personal meetings with Twain, one with Mencken.

Who supplies the wrong answers at Answers.com? — D.S.

BACK IN PRINT!
Don Swaim's H.L. Mencken Murder Case, originally published by St. Martin's Press, returns to print as a trade paperback through the Authors Guild Backinprint program. Available at amazon.com. $12.95. Swaim is founder of the Ambrose Bierce Site. "...there's a dusty-attic charm to Mr. Swaim's fond evocation of bookshops past, and he couldn't have enticed a livelier ghost than Mencken to haunt them." --The New York Times Sunday Book Review
IN THE BIERCE TRADITION
Satirical and literary, Bright Sun Extinguished: Ode to Norman Mailer by Don Swaim is an original pastiche of dark fantasy and horror inspired by the work of Ambrose Bierce. The free software to read it can easily be downloaded to Macs, PCs, iPads, Kindles, or any digital device from amazon.com. $5.99. Swaim is founder of the Ambrose Bierce Site. A literary gem filled with subtleties re pop culture and events leading up to and beyond a literary apocalypse. -- C.G. Bauer

BIERCE DOGGEREL
For reactionaries hoping to appropriate Bierce as their own:
Here lies the body of the Republican Party;
Corrupt, and generally speaking, hearty.
—Ambrose Bierce

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HE NEVER SAID IT!
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
This quote attributed to Ambrose Bierce has been knocking around the Internet for years. [Google shows 860,000 entries for it.] I’ve never found the origin for “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography,” nor has David E. Schultz, who along with S.T. Joshi, has created a voluminous database of Bierce’s works. In 2002, Schultz told The Ambrose Bierce Site: “I’ve looked high and low through my electronic archive of Bierce’s writings (c. 4.5 million words) and have never come across this. I’ve found numerous attributions to Bierce on the Web, but believe that Paul Rodriguez [Mexican-born stand-up comedian] is probably the originator.” It’s one of those quotes that sounds like Bierce but isn’t. — D.S.

EDITOR MEETS "THE MASTER"
Composite illustration by K.A. Silva pictures Don Swaim, who edits The Ambrose Bierce Site, and Ambrose Bierce in the library of William Randolph Hearst's Castle, San Simeon, California. Note the incongruity of the ornate cross behind Bierce. click to enlarge

Boston Globe columnist Jan Freeman is the author of Ambrose Bierce's "Write It Right": The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers. [Walker, 2009] In a column in The New York Times Magazine, Freeman examines Bierce's strict and sometimes arbitrary rules of language. Go to Bierce's Bugbears.

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Five Questions About: Ambrose Bierce
DaRK PaRTY ReVIEW, a Boston-based online literary magazine, queries Bierce Site webmaster Don Swaim about the life and disappearance of the legendary curmudgeon.

BIERCE ON FAILED FLAG AMENDMENT

It's clear what Ambrose Bierce would have thought of 2006's right-wing pandering to weaken America's Bill of Rights by some congressional politicians, who attempted to enact a constitutional amendment banning flag desecretion. Old Glory may be a symbol for many, but Bierce had little use for symbols. Of symbols he wrote: “Something that is supposed to typlify or stand for something else.” He defined the flag as: “A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships.”

The persona of Ambrose Bierce predominates in Richard Samuel West's illustrated history of The San Francisco Wasp. Bierce served on the satirical weekly from 1881 to 1886, making pungent observations in his "Prattle" column and at one point becoming managing editor.

Bierce's editorials in The Wasp were required reading for San Franciscans. An opponent of oppression, a champion of civil liberties, religious freedom, and intellectual honesty, Bierce attacked talentless journalists, unscrupulous businessmen, crooked politicians, and sanctimonious religious leaders. An illustrated history of The Wasp is available at Periodyssey Press.

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The Ambrose Bierce Site invites original articles, fiction, poetry, art
related to the mind and myth of Ambrose Bierce.

EXCLUSIVES
by Bierce Site contributors

ORIGINAL STUFF
by Don Swaim

EXCLUSIVESby Bierce Site contributors

ORIGINAL STUFFby Don Swaim

EXCLUSIVES
by Bierce Site contributors

ORIGINAL STUFF
by Don Swaim