Books with author B. Ambrose

This ebook is a collection of series of rather morbid and grotesques tales, depicting family murders and related by the murderers. The tales include: "My Favorite Murder"...a man on trial for his mother's murder also relates his uncle's "Oil Of Dog"...ghastly tale of death (not for those against the murder of animals) "An Imperfect Conflagration"...tale of a father/son burglar team's. disagreement "The Hypnotist"...a young man experiments with his hypnotic powers.Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 – 1914?) was an American satirist, critic, poet, editor and journalist. Bierce became a prolific author of short stories often humorous and sometimes bitter or macabre. His dark, sardonic views and vehemence as a critic earned him the nickname, "Bitter Bierce".

This collection of short and chilling ghost stories was originally published in 1913 and is loosely organized into four categories: The Ways of Ghosts, including "An Arrest," in which a murderer is escorted back to jail by the prison guard he murdered to escape; Soldier Folk including "A Man with Two Lives," in which a man dead and buried returns to claim his belongings, Some Haunted Houses, including "The Other Lodgers," in which a man checks into what he believes is a hotel only to discover it is an abandoned hospital, and Mysterious Disappearances, including "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field," in which a man disappears in full view of witnesses while crossing a field.

Everybody knows the general rules of fairy tales – a quiet shy boy of no notable standing will, by some convoluted and slightly unrealistic means get themselves involved in an adventure. This will normally involve knights, castles, dragons and, almost certainly, magic. There will undoubtedly be an evil, pantomime-style villain whom everyone will hate and who will probably have taken prisoner a beautiful princess. The adventure will, without fail, end with the boy saving the princess and in so doing, win her heart. They will get married, have lots of gold and jewels and everyone will live happily ever after…This story is a lot like that – there is magic (although not the real kind, just the lame sort involving mirrors, decks of cards and pulling rabbits out of hats) and there is a dragon too (but it is quite lame too – and has even forgotten how to breathe fire). Also, there is no cheesy ending with the main character and the princess walking off into the sunset holding hands, spouting cheesy innuendos at each other.But there is beer….lots of beer and drunken escapades…and so hopefully it’s not all bad…

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Contents: The Ways of Ghosts Present at a Hanging A Cold Greeting A Wireless Message An Arrest Soldier-Folk A Man with Two Lives Three and One are One A Baffled Ambuscade Two Military Executions Some Haunted Houses The Isle of Pines A Fruitless Assignment A Vine on a House At Old Man Eckert's The Spook House The Other Lodgers The Thing at Nolan The Difficulty of Crossing a Field An Unfinished Race Charles Ashmore's Trail Science to the Front My peculiar relation to the writer of the following narratives is such that I must ask the reader to overlook the absence of explanation as to how they came into my possession. Withal, my knowledge of him is so meager that I should rather not undertake to say if he were himself persuaded of the truth of what he relates; certainly such inquiries as I have thought it worth while to set about have not in every instance tended to confirmation of the statements made. Yet his style, for the most part devoid alike of artifice and art, almost baldly simple and direct, seems hardly compatible with the disingenuousness of a merely literary intention; one would call it the manner of one more concerned for the fruits of research than for the flowers of expression. In transcribing his notes and fortifying their claim to attention by giving them something of an orderly arrangement, I have conscientiously refrained from embellishing them with such small ornaments of diction as I may have felt myself able to bestow, which would not only have been impertinent, even if pleasing, but would have given me a somewhat closer relation to the work than I should care to have and to avow.--A. B.

The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical "reference" book written by Ambrose Bierce. The book offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language, lampooning cant and political doublespeak, as well as other aspects of human foolishness and frailty. It was originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book before being retitled in 1911. Modern "unabridged" versions that include Bierce "definitions" that were for various reasons missed by earlier editions continue to be popular a century later.

American satirist AMBROSE GWINNETT BIERCE (1842-c. 1914) began his satirical redefinitions of ordinary words in a weekly newspaper in 1881, and saw them first collected in *The Cynic's Word Book* in 1906. But it was with the 1911 republication as *The Devil's Dictionary* that he struck comedy gold for the ages with his pointedly mocking and ironic riffs on politics, business, religion, the arts, and American culture at large. From *abasement* ("a decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power; peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer") to *zoology* ("the science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly"), *The Devil's Dictionary* remains as witty today as it was a century ago.

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