Tales of Soldiers and Civilians : And Other Stories

by Bierce, Ambrose

• ISBN13: 9780140437560
• ISBN10: 0140437568
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-02-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Questing after Pancho Villa's revolutionary forces, Ambrose Bierce rode into Mexico in 1913 and completely vanished from 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 and 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 Bridge' and 'Chickamauga'; his macabre masterpieces 'The Damned Thing' and 'Moxon's Master'; and his hilariously horrific 'Oil of Dog' and 'My Favourite Murder'.

Author Biography

Tom Quirk is the Catherine Paine Middlebush Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the editor of the Penguin Classics editions of Mark Twain's Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches (1994) and Ambrose Bierce's Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories (2000) and co-editor of The Portable American Realism Reader (1997). His other books include Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn (1993), Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction (1997) and Nothing Abstract: Investigations in the American Literary Imagination (2001).

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Suggestions for Further Reading	xxvii
A Note on The Text	xxix
from IN THE MIDST OF LIFE
Soldiers
A Horseman in the Sky	5	(6)
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge	11	(9)
Chickamauga	20	(6)
A Son of the Gods	26	(6)
One of the Missing	32	(11)
Killed at Resaca	43	(6)
The Affair at Coulter's Notch	49	(8)
The Coup de Grace	57	(6)
Parker Adderson, Philosopher	63	(6)
An Affair of Outposts	69	(9)
The Story of a Conscience	78	(7)
One Kind of Officer	85	(10)
The Mocking-Bird	95	(8)
Civilians
The Man Out of the Nose	103	(7)
The Man and the Snake	110	(7)
The Boarded Window	117	(10)
from CAN SUCH THINGS BE?
Can Such Things Be?
Moxon's Master	127	(9)
A Tough Tussle	136	(7)
A Resumed Identity	143	(6)
The Night-Doings at ``Deadman's''	149	(8)
The Realm of the Unreal	157	(7)
The Damned Thing	164	(8)
Haita the Shepherd	172	(7)
The Ways of Ghosts
Present at a Hanging	179	(2)
A Wireless Message	181	(4)
Soldier Folk
Three and One Are One	185	(8)
from NEGLIGIBLE TALES
Negligible Tales
A Bottomless Grave	193	(7)
Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General	200	(9)
The City of the Gone Away	209	(6)
The Major's Tale	215	(7)
Curried Cow	222	(6)
A Revolt of the Gods	228	(5)
The Parenticide Club
My Favorite Murder	233	(8)
Oil of Dog	241	(6)
from ANTEPENULTIMATA
A Bivouac of the Dead	247	(6)
from THE OPINIONATOR
The Controversialist
The Short Story	253	(8)
Explanatory Notes	261	(8)
Glossary of Military Terms	269	(2)
Battle Sites and Battle Leaders	271