Tales of Soldiers and Civilians : And Other

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'.

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).

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

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Tales of Soldiers and Civilians : And Other Stories

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials