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Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

(1842 - 1914)
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce, author of The Devil's Dictionary

Biography of Ambrose Gwinett Bierce :

American journalist, writer, satirical humorist, essayist, poet and novelist. Ambrose Gwinett Bierce is very impressed by the American Civil War during which he distinguishes himself in the ranks of the Union. Then, he contributes to the News Letter of San Francisco before settling, in 1872, for four years, in London. There, he works as newspaper columnist for the humor magazine "Fun".

With a lot of black humor and a caustic style, Ambrose Gwinett Bierce tackles the established and reasonable values and the religion too. His macabre tales and his satirist and terrifying fables keep the marks of his real-life experience during the Civil War. He describes the fights of this one with a very strong realism, almost unbearable.

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce is a friend and a rival of Mark Twain. He is an avant-garde novelist in the United States. Attracted by the Mexican revolution, he gets involved, at the age of seventy-one, by the side of Pancho Villa, but he mysteriously disappears during a battle in 1914.
Bibliography : Black Beetles in Amber (1892), Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891), Can Such Things Be? (1893), Fantastic Fables (1899), Shapes of Clay (1903) The Devil's Dictionary (originally under the title The Cynic's Word Book 1906), Collected Works (1912).

Quotes of Ambrose Gwinett Bierce



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