Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and other Stories

Edited by Tom Quirk.

Witty, irreverent tales of war and the supernatural from the maverick misanthrope of American literature. Questing after Pancho Villa's revolutionary forces, Ambose Bierce rode into Mexico in 1913 & vanished off the face of the earth. Though his ultimate fate remains a mystery to this day, Bierce's contribution to American letters rests firmly on the basis of his incomparable Devil's Dictionary & a remarkable body of short fiction. This new collection gathers some three dozen of Bierce's finest stories, including the celebrated Civil War fictions "An Occurrence at Owl Creek" & "Chickamauga," his macabre masterpieces "The Damned Thing" & "Moxon's Master," & his hilariously horrific "Oil of Dog" & "My Favorite Murder." Tom Quirk, the volume's editor, provides a fascinating introductory essay, as well as indispensable explanatory notes, a glossary of military terms & a catalog of Civil War battle sites & leaders.

Contents:

From In the Midst of Life

Soldiers:
A Horseman in the Sky
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Chickamauga
A Son of the Gods
One of the Missing
Killed at Resaca
The Affair at Coulter’s Notch
The Coup de Grâce
Parker Adderson, Philosopher
An Affair of Outposts
The Story of a Conscience
One Kind of Officer
The Mocking-Bird

Civilians:
The Man Out of the Nose
The Man and the Snake
The Boarded Window

From Can Such Things Be?
Can Such Things Be?:
Moxon’s Master
A Tough Tussle
A Resumed Identity
The Night-Doings at “Deadman’s”
The Realm of the Unreal
The Damned Thing
Haïta the Shepherd

The Ways of Ghosts:
Present at a Hanging
A Wireless Message

Soldier Folk:
Three and One Are One

From Negligible Tales
Negligible Tales:
A Bottomless Grave
Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General
The City of the Gone Away
The Major’s Tale
Curried Cow
A Revolt of the Gods

The Parenticide Club:
My Favorite Murder
Oil of Dog

From Antepenultimata
A Bivouac of the Dead

From The Opinionator
The Controversialist:
The Short Story