The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as "Bitter Bierce" and "the devil's lexicographer," before he went into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again. He left behind a bad reputation and more than ninety short stories that are excellent manifestations of his sarcastic genius.

Brought together in this volume, these stories represent an exceptional accomplishment in American literature. In their dissent and sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity, and their element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time.

Readers familiar with the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge will want to turn to Bierce's other Civil War stories. Also included here are his horror stories, among them The Death of Halpin Frayser and The Damned Thing, and such tall tales as Oil of Dog and A Cargo of Cat.

"Happiness may come if not sought, but if looked for will never be seen;"
—Ambrose Bierce (The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce)