Guide Works of Ambrose Bierce (Includes fully Illustrated Biography)

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Re:works of ambrose bierce includes fully illustrated biography. The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce Volume 2 In the Midst of Life Tales of Soldiers and.
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Farquhar is a civilian planter who has not joined the army due to unexplained "Circumstances of an imperious nature In Bierce's world of war, civilians are by defition removed from reality, and so Farquhar's "imperious[ness]" marks him as ignorantly romantic. As Farquhar stands ready to hang, he imagines a series of romantically improbable events, events which lead F. Logan to characterize in his essay that Farquhar is a blend of "timidity, triteness, and inanity Indeed, the narrator smirks, "The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded" 2: However, the reader's increasing sympathy with Farquhar's hallucination suggests that justice may not be the product of the hanging; the narrative misdirection, in effect, questions the connection of law to justice.

How, one might ask, does the hanging of an ignorant romanticist answer the public and universal terms of justice? As it is with all Bierce's stories, there are no answers, and the story ends as Farquhar's hanged body inscrutably swings "gently from side to side In this condition, they are left stranded with barren rules that are disconnected from any production of justice.

Despair and death follow. In The Mocking Bird , the twin brothers William and John Grayrock were separated by kinsmen after the death of their widowed mother. William was taken to a northern city and John to a southern region. Long-lost to each other, William joined the Union and John the Confederacy. Now, posted at night on a picket-guard, William becomes disoriented and instinctively fires on a man.

His response alerts the army, and William holds his ground only because he does not know which way to retreat. The next morning, his company congratulates William for his attention and resolve, but William knows that his actions are born of personal desperation and ignorance: "That is not just ; I knew myself courageous, but this praise is for specific acts which I did not perform When he finds that he has shot his long-lost brother John, William probably follows his twin in death, for William is announced absent from the roll-call that evening. In their corruption, they act in the half-light of privilege.

The story begins as General Cameron addresses Ransome: "it is not permitted to you to know anything If you perceive any movement of troops in your front you are to open fire, and if attacked hold this position as long as you can" 2: The hostile tone of Cameron's directive remains unexplained, for "apparently too much had already been said" 2: , and Cameron later comments that his antagonist is "too fond of his [own] opinion" After Cameron leaves and Ransome turns to command his battery of six guns, the narrator portentously observes, "One acquainted with the niceties of military etiquette would have said that by his [Ransome's] manner he attested a sense of the rebuke that he had incurred.

It is one of the important uses of civility to signify resentment" 2: When the ensuing battle shifts and his fellow Union troops are in his line of fire, Ransome perversely obeys the letter of Cameron's order and, despite the protest of Lieutenant Price, has his men continue firing. In such confusion the narrator comments, "It seemed that everybody was looking for his immediate superior--an ominous circumstance" 2: After the battle, Ransome faces General Masterson, "the judge on horseback" 2: In this "most informal of courts-martial" 2: , Ransome acknowledges his full consciousness of the situation, but he also believes that he can subvert the law's connection to justice by pleading that he was strictly obeying orders.

However, because Price, who had witnessed the initial exchange between Cameron and Ransome, lies about his knowledge of the orders, and Cameron himself has been killed in the battle, Ransome finds himself with no means of legal recourse. Indeed, Ransome's resigned dignity before his execution signals that the law only chances to produce something resembling justice: "Quietly detaching his sabre from its supports, he handed it up to the provost-marshal" 2: This legal approach to the story reveals that it has been misread: Mariani underestimates that Ransome is "chronically incapable of reasoning beyond the letter of military codes" ; Davidson overestimates Ransome as a figure of "rudimentary self-deception Ransome is neither incapable of reasoning nor self-deceived; rather, his conscious attempt to subvert justice shows just how susceptible the law is to individual corruption.

• Basilisk Vol. 4.
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The results are a sort of legal sham. For instance, in George Thurston , the title character is unusually intrepid in battle. Whether in battle or in facing capture, Thurston calmly responds by habitually folding his "arms across his breast His fellow soldiers esteem his heroic obedience to orders, but the quartermaster explains that Thurston's obedience is really a psychological ploy to suppress his cowardice.

Thurston improbably dies from playing on a rope swing, and the fact that in death he strikes his habitual pose ironically confirms the quartermaster's opinion. In his false sense of privilege, Thurston thus subverts the public and universal connection of law to justice, and the narrator even labels Thurston's "an ignoble death" 2: In it, the six-foot-tall Lieutenant Herman Brayle dresses in "full uniform, especially in action, when most officers are content to be less flamboyantly attired The whole company admires him, except that "he was vain of his courage", in battle sitting "like an equestrian statue" 2: At Resaca, Georgia, Brayle must deliver a message by traversing a field that is parallel to the enemy.

Shots sound, but Brayle somehow survives until he reaches a "deep and sinuous gully" 2: When he pauses, the enemy shoots him. The letter concludes: "I could bear to hear of my soldier lover's death, but not of his cowardice" 2: When Mendenhall asks how he died, the narrator lies, "He was bitten by a snake The word play here--Mendenhall is robbed of her ignorantly romantic vision as a martyr's survivor and she is, figuratively speaking, a snake in Bierce's legal Eden--shows that something so private and trivial as a woman's demands are obscene in a wartime universe 9.

The scene is a country field, edged on either side by troops, and at issue is the opposition's strength and position. In view of this stagnate scene, a young officer in full uniform, riding a white horse with a scarlet blanket, volunteers to ride as a single scout. If a forward line of skirmishers had done the job, the narrator explains, "At the first volley a half of the questioning line will fall, the other half before it can accomplish the predestined retreat.

What a price to pay for gratified curiosity! This "military Christ" 2: 65 is, one might say, the very embodiment of perfect justice in his selfless practice of the law; however, while he is neither ignorant nor corrupt, he is so magnificent that the soldiers on the line are inspired, they charge and the enemy predictably kills many of them. Ah, those many, many needless dead! That great soul whose beautiful body is lying over yonder, so conspicuous against the sere hillside--could it not have been spared the bitter consciousness of a vain devotion?

Would an exception have marred too much the pitiless perfection of the divine, eternal plan?

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It begins as Carter Druse, who has chosen the Union despite the fact that he is the son of a wealthy Virginian, is asleep while on guard. His legal situation is precarious: "if detected he would be dead shortly afterward, death being the just and legal penalty of his crime" 2: However, "some invisible messenger of fate" 2: 19 arouses Gruse to the sight of a man on horseback high on a ledge--a man who appears of an "heroic, almost colossal, size" 2: The narrator explains just how public and universal is the law: "The duty of the soldier was plain: the man must be shot dead from ambush--without warning, without a moment's spiritual preparation, with never so much as an unspoken prayer, he must be sent to his account" 2: Druse also remembers his father's parting words: "Whatever may occur, do what you conceive to be your duty" 2: Although he recognizes the man as his father, Druse shoots the horse , which in its last breath carries its rider to death at the foot of the cliff.

Grenander does in her Twayne study, that Druse makes the correct decision, for he obeys the rules that are validated by principles associated with endangering his unit's position. The result, says Grenander, is a "tragic tale of moral choice" that shows Bierce's philosophy in "the necessity of right thinking for right feeling" Given Druse's "moral choice", society would seem to produce justice.

In coming to this conclusion, Grenander exonerates Druse's criminal inattention: Druse's father would be mortified to live with the shame of his son's eventual execution and, besides, a son killing a father is a punishment "out of all proportion" to the crime of falling asleep while on guard Grenander's second reason is fallacious, though, for punishment "out of all proportion" only subverts the connection of law to justice.

Indeed, the fact that Druse does not directly shoot his father indicates this disconnection, and the magnificence of Druse's father as the flying horseman symbolizes it.

After Druse tells the sergeant who the horseman was, the sergeant replies--and so the story ends--"Good God! The sergeant's utter shock shows that even the best legal system fails. Not surprisingly, the civilian stories also focus on how human ignorance and corruption subvert the goals of all social systems. One example will suffice here, for The Famous Gilson Bequest gives an explicit view of the internecine legal relationship between judges and individuals. The story involves the rascally Milton Gilson, who, before he hangs, takes revenge on his captor and chief persecutor Henry Brentshaw by appointing Brentshaw as the executor of his surprisingly large estate.

Gilson's will states that for five years Brentshaw must pay any people whom Gilson had robbed. Because the subsequent proceedings involve "the best legal talent" and plenty of "mendacious witnesses" 2: , not only is Gilson's entire estate consumed, but "the sun went down upon a region in which the moral sense was dead, the social conscience callous, the intellectual capacity dwarfed, enfeebled, and confused!

The corrupt Brentshaw is ruefully "victorious" in this legal climate, and the story ends as he sits in a flooded cemetery, envisioning Gilson's ghost robbing other caskets. The five years have been very hard on him, streaking his hair gray and "debas[ing] his walk to a doddering shuffle" 2: He dies that night, completely consumed by his corruption of the law. I look forward to beginning work on this edition soon. I held a long discussion with my agent Cherry Weiner and Stephen W.

We made progress in our idea of an anthology of original stories based on At the Mountains of Madness , and the volume may include some names that will surprise you.

I do not have any spare copies of these items as yet, and may in fact not get any that I can sell to my legions of fans. I was not aware that there even was a paperback edition. I myself have not seen this, but I hope it proves to be of interest. I am sorry to report that Mr. But the coverage is nice. For a time the Bierce book was ranked an impressive on Amazon.

That volume now comes to some , words. I have come to an agreement with Peter Crowther of PS Publishing to issue both volumes of my history of supernatural fiction, Unutterable Horror , together in the fall of —perhaps to debut at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, which I hope to attend. I believe that the issuance of both volumes at the same time will have a greater impact than if the volumes appeared separately, especially if a full year intervenes between the two volumes. I think Jerad Walters of Centipede Press made an error in limiting the edition to only copies, as I think those copies will sell out very quickly.

The listing on Amazon. I have in hand and have had for some weeks a copy of John C. There are many other interesting interviews in the book. The copies recently sent out by the publisher to contributors inadvertently omitted the bibliography, and corrected copies will presumably be sent out soon; but I have not received one yet.

We were hampered by good weather! In the usual dreary fall season here in Seattle, any day that is sunny and mild sends people outdoors rather than into dark movie theatres! But even though we probably lost money on the program, everyone seemed to have a good time. We expect to handle things a bit differently when we hold our cinematic retrospective of Edgar Allan Poe next year.

My Bierce edition from the Library of America continues to get good notices. A two-page review appeared in the October issue of Atlantic Monthly , written by Benjamin Schwarz, who had reviewed my H. Mencken on American Literature when it came out. Morton, which should appear from Hippocampus Press within the next few weeks. David E. Schultz and I will then get cracking on our two-volume edition of the joint correspondence of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, which we hope to issue late next year. Dufour Editions has expressed interest in my edition of H.

I believe I queried them ages ago, but they are only responding now. Well, better late than never! I now have to get cracking on an introduction, which I hope I can write before I leave for the World Fantasy Convention. At that event, my agent is going to make a strong pitch to Titan Books for my novel The Assaults of Chaos and the idea which Titan itself made for an anthology of original stories based on At the Mountains of Madness.

October 2, I have received copies of several of my books lately. Lovecraft , and the Lovecraft Annual No. The last is a particularly fat issue of nearly pages. Barlow that I would be happy to peddle to interested readers. All the papers were incisive and perspicacious, and my own—on the progress of freethought in the Anglo-American world in the twentieth century—appears to have been received with favour, although there was no time for a question-and-answer session.

All the participants will be submitting expanded versions of their papers for a book that will apparently be edited by J. Gordon Melton whose vampire encyclopedia is well known to enthusiasts of the weird.