A celebrated journalist in his lifetime, Ambrose Bierce’s began circulating his own sardonic, mischievous definitions of words in his various columns for San Francisco newspapers. Over several years t
"Lawyer: One skilled in circumvention of the law." Wickedly lampooning standard dictionaries, this classic of American humor was an instant success upon its 1911 publication. Complete and unabridged,
This collection chronicles the fiction and non fiction classics by the greatest writers the world has ever known. The inclusion of both popular as well as overlooked pieces is pivotal to providing a b
History, n. an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools. Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consi
Over 1,000 barbed and brilliant definitions.Congratulations are "the civility of envy," a historian is a "broad-gauged gossip," many more. H. L. Mencken called these "some of the most gorgeous
The Devil's Dictionary did not reappear in Bierce's next column ("Prattle," in the magazine The Argonaut, of which he had become an editor in March 1877). Nevertheless, he used the idea of comic defin
An incomparable satirist, the author became the "laughing devil" of the San Francisco news media, for he was about as discreet as a runaway locomotive, according to H L Mencken. This dictionary presen
In The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce defined "war" as "a by-product of the arts of peace." A Civil War veteran, Bierce had absolutely no illusions about "courage," "honor," and "glory" on the bat
"The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary" is a virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, offering some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred an
