This revised edition of Ambrose Bierce's 1892 collection of "Soldiers" and "Civilians" tales fills a void in American literature. A veteran of the Civil War and a journalist known for his integrity and biting satire, Ambrose Bierce was also a lively short-story writer of considerable depth and power. As San Francisco's most famous journalist during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Bierce was hired by William Randolph Hearst to write a column for San Francisco Examiner, where his "Soldiers" and "Civilians" ...
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This revised edition of Ambrose Bierce's 1892 collection of "Soldiers" and "Civilians" tales fills a void in American literature. A veteran of the Civil War and a journalist known for his integrity and biting satire, Ambrose Bierce was also a lively short-story writer of considerable depth and power. As San Francisco's most famous journalist during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Bierce was hired by William Randolph Hearst to write a column for San Francisco Examiner, where his "Soldiers" and "Civilians" tales first appeared during the late 1880s. By the standards of his day and ours, Bierce's journalism was often brilliantly insightful, viciously libelous, petty, and grand, frequently in the space of a single paragraph. This edition reveals the often compelling artistry of Bierce's original versions of the tales and the intentionally intricate design and scope of the original collection.
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Seller's Description:
Paul Landacre. Fine. No Jacket. Hardcover. 4to-over 9¾"-12" tall. A very crisp and clean used copy, almost new and unread condition, gift quality! Blue boards quarterbound by black cloth with gilt on blue lettering on the spine and a black illustration on the front board. 222 very clean unmarked and uncreased historical pages nicely enhanced by black and white illustrations! "Three factors in Bierce's early life shaped at least the beginning of his career; they were his youth, his four years of Civil War experience, and a curiously stupid piece of bureaucratic bungling. Ambrose Bierce was born on June 24, 1842, in Meigs County, Ohio, whither his father, Marcus Aurelius Bierce, had wandered from Cornwall, Connecticut, to settle with a group of like-minded religious farmers. The elder Bierce was afflicted with the philoprogenitive urge and an itchy foot; in the course of the next few years he had fathered nine children, giving all of them names beginning with 'A, ' and drifted from Ohio to Indiana, where he farmed with small success and did his best to rear his offspring in an atmosphere of vigorous piety...."----from the Introduction.