Ambrose Bierce – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Boarded Window’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Boarded Window’ is a story by the American author Ambrose Bierce, who is also remembered for his witty The Devil’s Dictionary and for his mysterious disappearance in around 1914. Like many of Bierce’s tales, ‘The Boarded Window’ contains elements of the horror genre. The story is about a man living in a cabin in the woods in Ohio. When his wife dies, he falls asleep after preparing her body for burial, only to discover a terrifying intruder making off with it.

A Summary and Analysis of Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Mocking-Bird’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Mocking-Bird’ is an 1891 short story by the American author Ambrose Bierce, who is also remembered for his witty The Devil’s Dictionary and for his mysterious disappearance in around 1914. ‘The Mocking-Bird’ is a Civil War tale about a soldier who shoots a man while on sentry duty at night, and struggles to find the man’s body – only to make a shocking and grisly discovery the next day.

You can read ‘The Mocking-Bird’ here before reading on for our summary and analysis of Bierce’s story.

A Summary and Analysis of Ambrose Bierce’s ‘Chickamauga’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Chickamauga’ is an 1891 short story by the American author Ambrose Bierce, who is also remembered for his witty The Devil’s Dictionary and for his mysterious disappearance in around 1914. ‘Chickamauga’ is a war story, but is unusual in focusing on a young child who is a bystander to the carnage that unfolds.

The story’s title is derived from the Battle of Chickamauga, which was fought in September 1863 between U.S. and Confederate forces in the American Civil War. Bierce was a Civil War veteran.You can read ‘Chickamauga’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Bierce’s story below.

The Best Definitions from Ambrose Bierce’s ‘Devil’s Dictionary’

The funniest and wittiest quotes from Ambrose Bierce’s comic masterpiece, The Devil’s Dictionary

We’ve read the whole of Ambrose Bierce’s wonderful The Devil’s Dictionary and, below, have distilled the book into 25 of the very best entries in this classic lexicon. The only stipulation we set ourselves was that the quotes we selected had to be short and pithy – preferably no longer than one sentence – to ensure maximum quotability. We hope you enjoy our selection.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

Barometer, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

Clairvoyant, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead.