Original Ambrose Bierce Site

11/20/24 “Camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling.” —Ambrose Bierce

Bierce as adapted from the artist Sanjin Masic of Sarajevo.

BIERCE AND THE RAILROGUES
In Ambrose Bierce. Collected Essays and Journalism, Volume 28: 1896-1897, edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, he takes on the railroad barons--the "railrogues"--in his column for the San Francisco Examiner and the New York American. Publisher William Randolph Hearst was so intent on destroying a railroad funding bill he sent Bierce to Washington to muckrake, turning out more than 60 columns on the crusade. Bierce’s attacks on the railroad barons became legendary, such as his vicious assault on railway magnate Collis P. Huntington: "Though severe, he is merciful. He tempers invective with falsehood. He says ugly things of his enemy, but he has the tenderness to be careful that they are mostly lies." When his critics shot back, Bierce returned fire:

In hope deferred, ambitious still to shine
By hating me at half-a-cent a line --
Like drones among the bees of brighter wing,
Sunless to shine and impotent to sting.
To estimate in easy verse I’ll try
The controversial value of a lie.
So lend your ears -- God knows you have enough!
I mean to teach, and if I can’t I’ll cuff.

This twenty-eighth volume in the series is a classic example of muckraking journalism in America.

available at AMAZON

Read HERE

RECENT FROM HIPPOCAMPUS PRESS

Buy HERE Bierce heads to Mexico in 1913 where he investigates a mysterious group of Mexican warriors calling themselves the Jaguar-Knights. What they are planning is nothing less than the resurrection of the ancient Aztec gods, with potentially cataclysmic results.
Jason C. Eckhardt is an artist, author, and critic. His collected short fiction was gathered in Lord of the Gallows (2022).

FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST FOR WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AMBROSE BIERCE

✔ Bierce News: HERE

✔ Life of Bierce. Chronology: HERE

✔ Bierce Resources, Scholarship, & Works Online: HERE

✔ Bierce Biography: HERE

✔ Bierce Disappearance: HERE

✔ Civil War Bierce: HERE

✔ Literary Bierce: HERE

✔ Bierce in the Arts: HERE

✔ Bierce in Film: HERE

Ambrose Bierce and his “Little Johnny”stories

EVEN GREAT WRITERS MAKE MISTAKES
HERE

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EXCLUSIVES
The Definitive Bierce Glossary of Religious Terms
Only Bierce could put mysticism, theology, and the notion of some supernatural being in their proper place. Read about it HERE

Nuggets and Dust.
Bierce's second book in 1871, a cheap paperback written under the name Dod Grile -- and his rarest book. Read about it HERE

The Parrot That (almost) Ruled the World.
Absurdity by Don Swaim HERE

Did Bierce really say “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography”? Short answer: no. HERE

The Pseudonyms of Ambrose Bierce
From Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J. to J. Milton Sloluck to Jum Coople (not to mention Dod Grile) HERE

The Many Deaths of Ambrose Bierce
Forrest Gander writes of the innumerable theories about Bierce's mysterious disappearance. HERE

Ambrose Bierce and the David Lang HoaxIn 1880, an Alabama farmer mysteriously disappears. Is Bierce's famous story "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field" based on the tale of the vanishing farmer? HERE

"Collecting Ambroses"
Unintended whimsy by CHARLES FORT: HERE

The Oxoxoco BottleAuthor Gerald Kersh came up with a yarn for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1950s about Bierce being fattened up by cannibals in Mexico. HERE [scroll down the page to read] .

Who Was Donn Piatt and Why Did Bierce Care?

The eleventh edition of Ambrose Bierce Collected Essays and Journalism includes a savage epitaph dedicated to Piatt (who was still alive). Read about Piatt HERE

Bierce and the Little Blue Books
Cheap editions for the masses from a troubled publisher: HERE

AMBROSE BIERCE

1877. That new, hideous, unholy dance craze known as the waltz was everywhere -- according to a best-seller attributed to a "William Herman." But rumors abounded that the book was a hoax, perpetrated by Ambrose Bierce, as explored by David Balfour. HERE

HOW THIS FAMOUS QUOTE HAPPENED

Read HERE

WHAT A FIND!

You open an old desk that had been in your family for decades -- and inside: an original letter from Ambrose Bierce to his niece Lora. HERE

THE SCHULTZ INTERVIEW

S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz
With word that David E. Schultz and his literary partner S.T. Joshi began Bierce's] Collected Essays and Journalism, in effect ALL of Bierce's published writings, I cornered Schultz to find out about the scholarship involved. I pose the questions, Schultz the answers. HERE

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BIERCE DISPUTES MARK TWAIN

In his San Francisco Examiner column of Aug. 26, 1888, Bierce takes to task his acquaintance Mark Twain for erring about Bierce's biography: Read HERE

EXCLUSIVE
HOW AMBROSE BIERCE DISAPPEARED (MAYBE)
by Leon Day

Once upon a time, there was a brave soldier. His specialty was going in front of the Union armies with small units and making maps and sketches of the tricky spots on the proposed route, under fire. But he is not famous for this.

Then he went West, exploring, and made the first maps of the Black Hills that were useful. He taught himself to write by reading the classics at a boring job at the San Francisco Mint, and broke into newspaper work. He became the top columnist in San Francisco in a time when the writer stood behind his work with a gun, not a lawyer. He married rich, went to England, learned a lot from the writers there, and taught some tricks himself. But this is just a footnote.

He wrote the first Civil War fiction that included the terror and put the glory in its place. It was so good that a whole generation of professional officers became abject fans. And every time the press fomented a war fever, he wrote on military subjects with a stark clarity that never forgot that the final result would be flowing blood and shattered bone. But this is poorly remembered.

continue reading CHAPTER ONE

Leon Day

About Leon Day

This amateur historian sought to locate Bierce's remains in the Mexican desert -- and published his findings on The Ambrose Bierce Site. Unfortunately, he came up short. The colorful, eccentric Day -- whose coffee cup was often filled with more than coffee -- died in 2011 without proving his theory.

His obituary is in the Austin, Texas, Statesman HERE

San Francisco Bulletin, March 24, 1920

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Buy HERE
“Deliverance of Sinners provides a comprehensive, engaging, and often humorous look at a truly titanic figure in American letters, and I’ve been happy to pore through it again and again.”
—William J. Donahue, editor Philadelphia/Suburban Life magazines.
• “Swaim is a remarkable researcher, storyteller, literary artiste, and pontificator here.” —Chris Bauer, author of 2 Street
• REVIEW BY GREYDOGTALES

ACCOLADES

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

OLDSTYLE TALES PRESS

RISINGSHADOW

“...one of the most intriguing novels published this year. It gives fans of classic weird fiction a unique and enjoyable glimpse into the life of Ambrose Bierce. Because Don Swaim is a devoted expert on all things Biercean.” — Seregil of Rhiminee

“The writing is elegiac at points, sardonic at others, and—for fans of his supernatural fiction—often gripping with terror.”
—Michael Grant Kellermeyer, Old Style Press

Edited with an introduction by S. T. Joshi

Book design by David E. Schultz

Cover Art by Jared Boggess

PREVIEW
S.T. Joshi's Introduction to
The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story: HERE

AMAZON.COM
HIPPOCAMPUS PRESS
BARNES&NOBLE
eBOOK

Sandra Carey Cody interviews Don Swaim about
The Assassination on Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story
HERE

WORLD'S FUNNIEST HUMANIST

Drawing of Ambrose Bierce by David Levine used with permission.
© Matthew & Eve Levine 2012. Limited edition prints and licensing opportunities
available through D. Levine Ink

Ambrose Bierce may not have used the term “humanism” back in his day—but we can now safely say he was the funniest humanist of all. My essay on Bierce and humanism: Read HERE

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EDITOR MEETS THE MASTER

Composite illustration by K.A. Silva. Don Swaim meets Ambrose Bierce in the library of William Randolph Hearst's Castle, San Simeon, California. click to enlarge

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ORIGINALSTUFFby Don Swaim

EXCLUSIVES

ORIGINAL
STUFF
by Don Swaim