Books by Mr Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce, Mr Ambrose Bierce
Bierce's classic work of satirical wit and Steadman's pointed pen redefine the way we see even the seemingly simplest of terms.
Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.
Bride, n.: A woman with a great future behind her.
Consult, v: To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
Ambrose Bierce's "dictionary" of epigrams, essays, verses, and vignettes targets the religious, the romantic, the political, and the economic, in equal measure. The book you need to define both friends and enemies, The Devil's Dictionary is also the perfect gift, showcasing Bierce's razor-sharp wit and Ralph Steadman's incisive pen to their best advantage.
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The Devil's Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce, Mr Ambrose Bierce
Born in Ohio in 1842, journalist, short-story writer and critic Ambrose Bierce developed into one of this country's most celebrated and cynical wits — a merciless "American Swift" whose literary barbs were aimed at folly, self-delusion, politics, business, religion, literature and the arts. In this splendid "dictionary" of epigrams, essays, verses and vignettes, you'll find over 1,000 pointed definitions, e.g. Congratulation ("The civility of envy"), Coward ("One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs") and Historian ("A broad-gauge gossip"). Anyone who likes to laugh will love The Devil's Dictionary. Anyone looking for a bon mot to enliven their next speech, paper or conversation will have a field day thumbing through what H. L. Mencken called "some of the most gorgeous witticisms in the English language."
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The Devil's Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce, Mr Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce, journalist and former soldier for the Union army in the Civil War, began writing satirical definitions for the San Francisco Wasp in 1881, and later for the San Francisco Examiner, launching a journalistic career that would see him liked and loathed in equal measure and earn him the title of “the wickedest man in San Francisco.”
A contemporary of Mark Twain, Bierce brought his biting humor to bear on spoof definitions of everyday words, writing deliberate mistranslations of the vocabulary of the establishment, the church, and the politics of his day, and shining a sardonic light on hypocrisy and deception. These columns formed the beginnings of a dictionary, first published in 1906 as The Cynic’s Word Book, which stopped at the letter L, and five years later as a full A–Z text known as The Devil's Dictionary. More than one hundred years later, Bierce’s redefinitions still give us pause for thought: interpreting reporter, for example, as “a writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words”; un-american as “wicked, intolerable, heathenish”; and politics as “the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” This timely new edition of Bierce’s irreverent and provocative dictionary is the perfect gift for misanthropes and word lovers alike.
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