Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce was born in Ohio in 1842, the tenth of thirteen children of a poor farming family. Enlisted at eighteen in the Union army, he fought at Shiloh and Chickamauga, served as a topographical officer and took a bullet to the head at Kennesaw. Settled in San Francisco, he became a columnist so biting that he was nicknamed Bitter Bierce, and published a satirical dictionary that defines common words by their opposite. In 1913, at seventy-one, he left for Mexico to join Pancho Villa; his last known letter dates from December, and his trace was never found.

In the catalogue 1

• Short storiesAn Occurrence at Owl Creek BridgeAmbrose Bierce · 1890LiteraturePublic domain