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AMBROSE BIERCE. He never owned a horse, a carriage, or a car. He never owned his own home. He rented. He was mobile. So mobile that he rode, with all of his possessions, on a leased horse into the Mexican desert to join Pancho Villa -- and vanished. Once, Bierce's employer, William Randolph Hearst -- after bragging about his own acquisitions of statuary, art, books, tapestries -- asked Bierce what he collected. Bierce said, "I collect words. And ideas. Like you, I also store them. But in the reservoir of my mind. I can take them out and display them at a moment's notice. Eminently portable, Mr. Hearst. And I don't find it necessary to show them all at the same time."
painting of Bierce by J.H.E. Partington, Library of Congress
THE DEVILS DICTIONARY. Bierce began The Devil's Dictionary as a half-page column in the San Franciscio Wasp in 1881 -- beginning with the letter "P" -- and added to it in weekly installments, Doubleday published the dictionary as The Cynic's Word Book in 1906, although the definitions only ran through half the alphabet, A-L. In 1911 Bierce added the second half, M-Z, in Volume 7 of his Collected Works, this time completing the alphabet. Since then the book has been through dozens of printings by various publishers, and since the text is in the public domain, the dictionary can easily be found on the Internet. Below are several web versions, some better than others, and some searchable.
Chronology of the Life and Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce
AMBROSE BIERCE: "The fact is, that of your own sanity you have no evidence that's any better than some lunatic who thinks he's Ulysses S. Grant or Jesus H. Christ. I certainly have no evidence of mine. For all I know you don't exist. Everything around me may be fictions of my disordered imagination."
Other Bierce Sites & Scholarship
Ambrose Bierce in the News Incredible amount of news generating all the time regarding Bierce.
The Poetry of Ambrose Bierce by Jack Matthews.
Chronology of the Life and Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce. First and, presumably, the only such chronology on the web.
The Last Stand of Ambrose Bierce Script of Rob Foster's two act play. Staged in Carmel, California, 2001.
Ambrose & Gertrude A short play by Don Swaim.
The Old Gringo: Fact, Fiction and Fantasy. Glenn Willeford's lengthy article speculating about the death of Bierce in Mexico
The Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society. Premier site and the first online. The Bierce bibliography on ABAS is amazing: doctoral theses, musicals, videos, adaptations, and it keeps growing.
Allan Gullette's Bierce Page. updated and improved -- thank you, Allan
Heritage Studio illustration of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Black and white drawings by D.J. Neary. Downloadable version of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Twenty-eight minute 1962 film version directed by Robert Enrico. Needs RealPlayer 8. Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamauga": An Interdisciplinary Approach by Donald Broda,a critical analysis of the famous story. Questia: The Online Library More than a dozen books by and about Bierce, including biography and interpretation. Note: this is a pay site.
California Literature by Arthur Inkersley. Focuses on Bierce and his compatriots in an article that appeared in 1897 in the San Francisco News Letter.
Three Poems About or Inspired by Ambrose Bierce by Keith Allen Daniels.
Alone in Bad Company by Roy Morris, Jr. First chapter of his 1995 biography of Bierce.
Tentative Bierce Bibliography from S. Baum, Dept. of Oceanography, Texas A&M University.
Modest Bierce Bibliography from the UK.
Bastard out of California Ambrose Bierce as a Pre-Muckraker. Essay by Andrew Hicks.
Mark Twain - Ambrose Bierce and the Bohemian Grove Club on David Icke's website.
Ambrose Bierce: Essay by Donald Clarke. Short biography and critical analysis.
Bierce Quotes -- although most of them you'll find in The Devil's Dictionary:
Interpreting the Devil's Dictionary Andrew Graham of Keele University (U.K.) has put his scholarly interpretation of Bierce's Devil's Dictionary on the web.Ambrose Bierce, Master of the Macabre. Alan Gullete's sketchy biography.
Brief Bio & Bibliography at Books & Writers
Brief Bierce Biography in English and Spanish by Charles Bellver Torla.
The Carey McWilliams Collection Listing of material at UCLA collected by the first major Bierce biographer.
Bierce Archive at Stanford University Bierce Papers consisting primarily of correspondence to Bierce from 1872-1913.
Bierce Papers at USC, Berkeley Letters to Bierce ca.1894-1913.
Wired for Books. Don Swaim & Jack Matthews debate the myth and mind of Ambrose Bierce in RealAudio.
Love & Kisses: Bierce & Wilde. Ambrose Bierce meets Oscar Wilde.
Wickedest man in San Francisco. Don Swaim's story of Bierce in California.
Bierce Duels with the Sage of Baltimore. Ambrose Bierce takes on H. L. Mencken.
Bierce Saves the Life of Pancho Villa. Ambrose Bierce and Pancho Villa.
Literary San Antonio: Ambrose Bierce Account of Bierce's visit to San Antonio shortly before his disappearance in Mexico.
Devil in the Details by James McWilliams, Austin Chronicle Lengthy interview with Leon Day, amateur historian who has spent years investigating Bierce's disappearance.Ambrose Bierce by Janice Albert Modest, opinionated account of Bierce that borrows heavily from the Roy Morris, Jr., biography. Nice French Site Devoted to Ambrose Bierce Yes, it's in French, but the search engine Google allows a translation into English.
Spanish-language site focusing on Bierce's horror stories in Spanish, but, again, Google allows a translation into English.
EduETH page devoted to Ambrose Bierce with bio, reading list, etc.
American Listeners' Theater. Timothy Patrick Miller reads demo versions of some of Bierce's Civil War stories. Requires Real Audio or Windows Media Player.
Ambrose Bierce Communication Board
ARCHIVE of Ambrose Bierce Communication Board.
AMBROSE BIERCE: "Let me tell you what a writer is. A writer takes comprehensive views, holds large convictions, makes wide generalizations. A writer's not English, Mexican, or American. A writer's not a woman nor a man. A writer's not Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, nor snake worshipper. To local standards of right and wrong a writer's civilly indifferent. In the virtues, a writer's concerned only with general expediency. A writer doesn't waste time focusing on fixed moral principles that aren't yet before the court of conscience. Happiness discloses itself to a writer as the end and purpose of life, and art and love are the only means to a writer's happiness. A writer is free of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, and politics. To a writer, a continent doesn't seem long, nor a century wide. And a writer has ever present consciousness that this is a world of...fools and rogues, blind with superstition, tormented with envy, consumed with vanity, selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions, and frothing mad."
Questions, Comments About Bierce? Go to
The Ambrose Bierce Communication Board
