Before he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as "bitter Bierce" and "the devil's lexicographer." He left behind a nasty reputation and more than ninety short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius. Brought together in this volume, these stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and 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."

In "The Devil's Dictionary" Ambrose Bierce defined "war" as "a by-product of the arts of peace." A Civil War veteran, Bierce had absolutely no illusions about "courage," "honor," and "glory" on the battlefield. These stories form one of the great antiwar statements in American literature. Included here are the classic "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, " "Chickamauga," "The Mocking Bird," "The Coup de Grace," "Parker Anderson," "Philosopher," and other stories celebrated for their intensity, startling insight, and mastery of form.