The Evolution of Ambrose Bierce's Fiction
FAIN: FT-35623-91
Lawrence I. Berkove
Regents of the University of Michigan (Dearborn, MI 48128-2406)
No project description available
Associated Products
A Prescription for Adversity: The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce (Book)Title: A Prescription for Adversity: The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce
Author: Lawrence Berkove
Abstract: A Prescription for Adversity makes the revolutionary case that Ambrose Bierce, far from being a bitter misanthrope, was instead both a compassionate and moral author. Berkove, focusing on Bierce's short fiction, establishes the necessity of recognizing the pattern of his intellectual and literary development over the course of his career. The author shows that Bierce, probably the American author with the most extensive experience of the Civil War, turned to classical Stoicism and English and French Enlightenment literature in his postwar search for meaning. Bierce's fiction arose from his ultimately unsatisfying encounters with the philosophies those sources offered, but the moral commitment as well as the literary techniques of their authors, particularly Jonathan Swift, inspired him. Dating Bierce's fiction, and introducing uncollected journalism, correspondence, and important new literary history and biographical information, Berkove brings new insights to a number of stories, including "A Son of the Gods" and "A Horseman in the Sky, " but especially "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, " and presents compelling readings of the Parenticide Club tales and "Moxon's Master." A Prescription for Adversity substantiates how Bierce at his best is one of the few American authors who rise to the level of Mark Twain, and the only one who touches Jonathan Swift. A work of both biography and literary criticism, this book rescues Ambrose Bierce and his literature from the neglect to which it has been assigned by "illfounded, obtuse, and unproductive approaches based on skewed notions of his personality and forced or facile readings of individual stories."
Year: 2002
Primary URL:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/prescription-for-adversity-the-moral-art-of-ambrose-bierce/oclc/48435270?referer=di&ht=editionISBN: 978-0814250914
The Short Fiction of Ambrose Bierce: A Comprehensive Edition (Book)Title: The Short Fiction of Ambrose Bierce: A Comprehensive Edition
Author: Ambrose Bierce
Editor: Lawrence Berkove
Editor: S. T. Joshi
Editor: David Schultz
Abstract: Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?) has been a widely read, often controversial, author for more than a hundred years, but until now there has been no exhaustive collection of his short fiction. This new edition, both comprehensive and chronological, reveals the broad range of fiction that Bierce mastered. Readers who expect to find only a writer of grim and shocking stories of war and other horrors will discover that he excelled at other types of tales—humorous, mystical, Gothic, satirical, sentimental, mystery, science fiction, and even love stories. This collection gives readers the opportunity to observe the growth of characteristic themes and techniques in Bierce’s short fiction. A number of the early sketches evidence both the thoughtful moral focus and the technical brilliance of his best work, and here they also can be seen as training exercises for the young writer on his way to the better-known stories of his artistic peak. Although several previous books purport to provide accurate collections of Bierce’s work, none does more than uncritically re-assemble the tales in the heretofore standard Collected Works (1909-1912). This edition will be the new standard. It is the first to include all his known and rediscovered short fiction. Of the 249 items collected in this edition, 1 story (“Alasper”) is unpublished, 58 have not been previously reprinted from the newspapers and magazines in which they originally appeared, and 74 have not been reprinted since their appearance in Bierce’s early volumes. It is also the only edition to be based upon consultation of manuscripts and early printed sources. As a result, textual corrections have been made to some of Bierce’s stories, including two of his best known.
Year: 2006
Primary URL:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/short-fiction-of-ambrose-bierce-a-comprehensive-edition/oclc/62897596&referer=brief_resultsISBN: 978-157233475