Ambrose Bierce

MANY know him, but no one knows very much about him. This might have been said of Ambrose Bierce in his own time, and it can be said with as much justice today. Bierce remains an enigmatic figure; most of what has been recorded about the man mingles fact and legend. Very little has been written about his work, though his stories are frequently carried in anthologies. Most critical judgment has dealt in easy generalities that fit only a handful of his stories and perpetuate the hasty opinions formulated by his usually hostile fellow journalists. The legends that circulated in his lifetime, abetted by his own reticence, add up to a portrait of a satyr organizing midnight graveyard revels, a misanthrope pessimistically at odds with all mankind, a bitter adversary of social progress, a demanding friend and a deadly enemy. In his writing, the legend would have it, he added his own sardonic flavor to the Gothic brew he inherited from Edgar Allan Poe.