Cogito ergo cogito sum — I think; therefore, I think I am. —Ambrose Bierce
BIERCE
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ALERT
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![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-latest-news.gif) ...about Bierce HERE
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CONTRIBUTE STUFF? The Ambrose Bierce Site invites original short fiction, articles, essays, poetry, art related to the mind and myth of Ambrose Bierce.
SUBMIT TO Don Swaim, editor
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Ambrose Bierce CHRONOLOGY HERE
DEFINITIVE INTERVIEW
Don Swaim's exhaustive interview with S.T. Joshi, world's leading authority on Lovecraft, Bierce, sci-fi, horror, and weird fiction in general. READ
Alas and alack. Social media has prevailed. Our years-old Bravenet message board, with its annoying ads, has essentially been replaced by Facebook. If you have questions or comments about Bierce, simply join our new Bierce Facebook page. It's an open group. Just click to join. Our old message board will soon vanish -- although not as mysteriously as Bierce. It'll remain up for a while if you want to read old postings -- or even post.
Old Message Board Archive
dates to 2001
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Join the Bierce Facebook Group
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/skull-facebook-small.jpg) HERE
portrait by Tom Redman
BIERCE Resources Scholarship Works On Line
BIERCE Biography
BIERCE Disappearance
BIERCE Civil War
BIERCE Literary
BIERCE In the Arts
BIERCE Film
Kathryn Landis watercolors
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ORIGINAL BIERCE ART by
Kathryn Landis
Tom Redman
Jack Matthews & Don Swaim Debate Bierce
Listen HERE
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FOUR BIERCE OPERAS
St. Ambrose
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Mocking Bird
Difficulty of Crossing a Field
BIERCE JOURNALISM ARCHIVE
Archives of American Journalism site
PROJECT GUTENBERG
Includes first book, A Fiend's Delight (1872)
AMBROSE BIERCE AT HOME
by Helen Bierce American Mercury Dec. i933
Gregory Peck as Bierce
EXCLUSIVES by Bierce Site contributors
The Last Dream (For Ambrose Bierce)
Poetry by Leigh Blackmore
Occurrence at Ojinaga
Fiction by Ron Hefner
And As to Drink
Fiction by K. A. di'Gaetano
My Hunt for Ambrose Bierce
Article by Leon Day
Bierce is Buried Here
Account by James Leinert
Ohio Honors Native Son
Report by Don Swaim
Rob Holmes as Bierce
Finding Bierce's Birthplace
Article by Margaret Parker
Bullet,Grave, Memory Bierce meets Billy the Kid Fiction by Wayne MacDonald
Ambrose Bierce and the Joy of Outrage
Essay by Jack Matthews
The Poetry of Ambrose Bierce
Essay by Jack Matthews
Almighty God Bierce
Two-act play by Ed Scutt
The Last Stand of Ambrose Bierce
Two-act play by Rob Foster
Ambrose & Gertrude
Bierce vs. Gertrude Atherton; One-act play by Don Swaim
ORIGINAL STUFF by Don Swaim
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-assassination-logo-small.jpg) a novel by Don Swaim
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/donswaimportrait2.jpg) Swaim
Return to Carcosa 21st Century Roard Trip fiction
Ambrose Bierce on the 2016 presidential election article
Ambrose Bierce and The Little Johnny Stories article
The First Bierce Scholar Vincent Starrett article
Poet of the Skies,
Prophet of the Sun Bierce, Hearst, Sterling fiction
Joshi Q&A; with S.T. Joshi, world authority on Bierce & the weird tale
Ambrose Bierce & the Little Blue Books article
Stephen Vincent Benét, Ambrose Bierce, and Me Two Fabulists article
The Blasphemer Robert G. Ingersoll Why He Mattered to Bierce article
Ambrose & Henry H.L Mencken's debt to Bierce article
Edwin Markham: The Man Who Irked Bierce (and wrote about zombies) article
Bierce's Typewriter article
Ambrose Bierce Alley
Photo-essay
Bierce Assails Politicos
Speculation
Bierce on Terrorism
Speculation
Bierce on the Notion of God
Speculation
Bierce vs Jack London
Reconstruction
Bierce & Pancho Villa
Fiction
The Wickedest Man in San Francisco
Fiction
Love and Kisses: Bierce & Oscar Wilde
Fiction
Bierce Duels with H.L. Mencken
Fiction
CONTRIBUTE? The Ambrose Bierce Site invites original articles, fiction, poetry, art related to the mind and myth of Ambrose Bierce. Email editor Don Swaim:
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PC Magazine's BEST OF THE INTERNET cites Don Swaim's Wired for Books. Nov. 20, 2007 issue
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WCBS Newsradio 88 Appreciation Site
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BOOK BEAT: The Podcast
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Bucks County Writers Workshop
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/errata2.jpg) The Online Literary Magazine
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Radio Days: A Broadcaster's Memoir
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Steinbeck & Kaufman at Cherchez La Farm
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/wiredforbooks2.gif) Don Swaim's Interviews the World's Best Writers
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/07.sunset-8.04.small.jpg) Bucks County Sunsets A personal page about, yes, sunsets over Pennsylvania.
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/doughboybgtiny.gif)
Fighting the Hun in W.W. I Pictorial Essay
DON'S HOUSES: Where I've Lived: click
Growing Up in WW2
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/ahs.small.logo.gif) High School Days
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/swaim-crest.jpg) The Swaim in History
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/swaim-rhino-mascot.gif) The Swaim in America
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/swimsuit-issue-cover-tiny.jpg) The Swimsuit Issue
INSTANT LITERARY QUIZ
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click HERE
Try it. Make Shakespeare Proud!
BIERCE SITE FOUNDER WINS 2011 PEARL S. BUCK FICTION AWARD
Don Swaim, founder of the Ambrose Bierce Site, won first prize for his short story, "Dearest Friend, Annie," which focuses on the relationship between Walt Whitman and Anne Gilchrist.
Three others placed in the youth division. Swaim [above] is shown accepting the award under a portrait of Pearl S. Buck at the historic Buck house on April 10, 2011.
Buck, author of The Good Earth, won the Nobel Prize for literature, and her Pennsylvania, home is a National Historic Landmark. Pearl S. Buck International
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Camels and Christians accept their burdens kneeling. —Ambrose Bierce
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-sanjin-multiples-small.gif) Bierce as adapted from the artist Sanjin Masic of Sarajevo and used with his permission. More of Sanjin's art HERE
Bierce takes a 21st century birthday road trip to revisit some of his old haunts (so to speak) in the Deep South
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-return-to-carcosa.jpg) read HERE
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FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST FOR WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AMBROSE BIERCE
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WORLD'S FUNNIEST HUMANIST
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Drawing of Ambrose Bierce by David Levine used with permission. © Matthew & Eve Levine 2012. Limited edition prints and licensing opportunities available through D. Levine Ink
Ambrose Bierce may not have used the term humanism back in his day—but we can now safely say he was the funniest humanist of all. My essay on Bierce and humanism: Read HERE
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I THOUGHT THIS IS A BAD DREAM AND TRIED TO CRY OUT
How did the head wound suffered by Ambrose Bierce during the Civil War Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, on June 12, 1864, impact his fiction? This is the question tackled by Kyle Keeler in an article originally published in the summer 2019 issue of Midwest Quarterly
Read it here: Sleep as Trauma
This photo of a youthful Bierce, probably taken during or just after his military service, clearly show what appears to be a groove through his hairline, which obviously had been shaved. More than likely, this was the result of his wounding by a Confederate sniper.
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AMBROSE AND GERTRUDE
In 1891, California novelist Gertrude Atherton confronted Ambrose Bierce in a contentious meeting in Sunol Glen, California. The sparks fly in this one-act play by Don Swaim. HERE |
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Nuggets and Dust by "Dod Grile," Ambrose Bierce's second book, was published under his pseudonym by Chatto and Windus in London in 1871, when Bierce was an expatriate. Its subtitle is "Panned Out in California," loosely arranged by "J. Milton Sloluck," another of Bierce's pseudonyms. It was a cheap paperback showing on the cover a miner panning gold and holding a knife. In this first and only edition (until now) there were ads on the back cover for Crosby's Balsamic Cough Elixir and Dr. Rooke's Oriental Pills and Solar Elixir, plus several pages of ads at the front.
Essentially, the book reprinted bits and pieces from Bierce's "Town Crier" columns in the San Francisco News-Letter as well as more current jottings. It was neither physically nor literarily a handsome product, and Bierce never republished it. The contents might be described as amusing trifles. It's now a rarity for Bierce collectors. A recent Internet search located only two copies for sale, both at high prices and in poor condition. in 2017, Didcot House, which appears to be based in the U.K., came out with a paperback edition using Amazon's Create Space.
Now, a firm called Reink Books of Delhi, India, is offering a paperback edition for $15.07 with no overseas shipping fee. Strangely, the Reink edition, distributed by S N Books World, identifies the author nowhere in the book, merely a plain cover with the title and an ID number. The book is said to have been reprinted from the original edition, and appears to be a facsimile, evidence of what this rare Bierce item actually looked like when the pages were opened.
From the aforementioned, below is a sample of Ambrose Bierce's tongue-in-cheek cynicism and misanthropy in a section titled "Man in Quantity" in which he takes to task all mankind:
It is impossible for one to look at him without a lively disgust, similar to that inspired by the spectacle of a tangled web of rattlesnakes thawing and reeking in the spring sunlight. A single individual of the species is intolerable, but put a score of them into close contact, and straightway they shall begin to enact you so varied and multifold unpleasantness -- so distracting and displeasing pranks -- a myriad of so fathomless abominations, that one would fain be a dog, if that dog only were any better or worse -- which they are not.
We never look upon man without thinking of that horrid -- perhaps fabled -- animal that is clean-limbed, and sweet, and gracious, and comely, but which no sooner touches one of its kind than it begins to expire a noxious odor.... Immortal, are you, yahoo? Godlike? In the image of your Maker? And yet you thieve, you beat wives, and you die in all manner of unseemly ways!
You give lectures and give birth; you have collisions, and fires, and divine service, and the small-pox. Talk not to us, monster, of your godlike attributes; we know you for a most pestilent and forbidding beast requiring the constant purification of water, and oft-renewed anointing with perfumes.
--Ambrose Bierce
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H.L. MENCKEN On the Ambrose Bierce Mystery
In 1929, Walter Neale, Bierce's sometime publisher, issued a purported biography of Bierce that was at best, dubious, such as Neale's wild suggestion that Bierce might have committed suicide in the Grand Canyon. The great critic H. L. Mencken in the September 1929 issue of The American Mercury turned his cynical eye on Neale's book, and with it a rather scathing criticism of Bierce himself. It can be read HERE
Don Swaim's article, "Ambrose & Henry," examines the relationship between Bierce and Mencken in the spring 2011 edition of Menckeniana, published by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore. To read it go to: Menckeniana.
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AMBROSE BIERCE AND HIS FIRST LOVE
by Carey McWilliams
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-civil-war-cropped.gif) Bierce shortly after enlisting to fight in the Civil War
Carey McWilliams, author of the first definitive Bierce biography in 1929, writes of Bierce's first fling. Originally published in The Bookman, New York, June 1932.
Read HERE
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HE NEVER SAID IT!
War is Gods way of teaching Americans geography. & The covers of this book are too far apart. The geography quote attributed to Ambrose Bierce has been knocking around the Internet for years. [Google shows 159,000 entries for it.] Ive never found the origin for War is Gods way of teaching Americans geography, nor has David E. Schultz, who along with S.T. Joshi, has created a voluminous database of Bierces works. Schultz told The Ambrose Bierce Site: Ive looked high and low through my electronic archive of Bierces writings (c. 4.5 million words) and have never come across this. Ive found numerous attributions to Bierce on the Web, but believe that Paul Rodriguez [Mexican-born stand-up comedian] is probably the originator. Its one of those quotes that sounds like Bierce but isnt.
Nor do I believe Bierce ever said, "The covers of this book are too far apart." If he did, I've never found the source, nor the name of the book to which he allegedly referred. The line is often repeated as though it's a given that Bierce authored that devastating put-down, but even if he didn't it's almost too good a line not to award it to him.
That said, I found an excellent site called QUOTE INVESTIGATOR that goes into super detail about Bierce's alleged book covers quote. Essentially, it says, the quote is second-hand by the humorist Irvin S. Cobb in 1923 — long after Bierce's death. Many others picked it up. This is the best debunking I've seen of the Bierce quote, which has also been attributed to Mark Twain and, yes, even to Jack Benny. —DS
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Bierce on our changing climate
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BIERCE COVER CITED BY SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS
Artist Jared Boggess' cover for The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story by Don Swaim was chosen for the annual exhibition by the Society of Illustrators in New York. It was among 400 artworks selected out of thousands of entries from artists worldwide.
Other work by Jared Boggess can be viewed HERE
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![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-devils-bible-title-small.jpg) A list of the scores of pen names Bierce used, mostly, in his Devil's Dictionary HERE
WORLD'S FIRST BIERCE SCHOLAR Vincent Starrett Scooped the World on Bierce's Mysterious Disappearance
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Read Don Swaim's essay on Vincent Starrett and the early Bierce scholarship HERE
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| BIERCE PROFILED IN 'PGttCM' PODCAST Episode 53 -- by DB Spitzer
Spitzer's 40-minute podcast [People's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos] is divided into three parts: the first focuses on "Hastur," a character who first appears in Bierce's short story "Haita the Shepherd" in 1893. The character's name was subsequently appropriated by both H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers. The podcast's second part is a review of Don Swaim's The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story. And the third a biographical essay on Bierce.
Listen HERE
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Final Days with William Randolph Hearst
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/new-hearst-bierce-logo.jpg) First Days with George Sterling HERE
and Bierce said... LET THERE BE LIGHT!
kaleidoscopic image of Ambrose Bierce
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-scope-1-small.jpg) Don Swaim's photo-essay on the kaleidoscope HERE
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ABOUT AMBROSE BIERCE
June 24, 1842 to ? by Leon Day
Once upon a time, there was a brave soldier. His specialty was going in front of the Union armies with small units and making maps and sketches of the tricky spots on the proposed route, under fire. But he is not famous for this.
Then he went West, exploring, and made the first maps of the Black Hills that were useful. He taught himself to write by reading the classics at a boring job at the San Francisco Mint, and broke into newspaper work. He became the top columnist in San Francisco in a time when the writer stood behind his work with a gun, not a lawyer. He married rich, went to England, learned a lot from the writers there, and taught some tricks himself. But this is just a footnote.
He wrote the first Civil War fiction that included the terror and put the glory in its place. It was so good that a whole generation of professional officers became abject fans. And every time the press fomented a war fever, he wrote on military subjects with a stark clarity that never forgot that the final result would be flowing blood and shattered bone. But this is poorly remembered.
He wrote fine poetry, often to a deadline, and trained a generation of poets -- became a sort of literary cult leader. But this is a matter for English professors.
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| And he was funny politically, too, always opposed to demagogy and privilege alike, showing no faith that the common man could command politics, or the rich man transcend his greed. Split the difference between George Orwell and Herbert Spencer and you might approach the ideas of this writer who reached millions through the Hearst press. But this interests very few.
Thus, Ambrose Bierce is best remembered today because nobody knows what happened to him. He went into the whirlpool of the Mexican Revolution in December 1913, and never popped up. He was good at writing spooky stories, and four or five have been hitched to his star. ![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-bulletin-4.jpg)
San Francisco Bulletin, March 24, 1920
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Leon Day
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About Leon Day
This amateur historian sought to locate Bierce's remains in the Mexican desert -- and published his findings on The Ambrose Bierce Site. Unfortunately, he came up short. The colorful, eccentric Day -- whose coffee cup was often filled with more than coffee -- died in 2011 without proving his theory.
His obituary in the Austin, Texas, Statesman HERE
Read Day's well thought-out, six-part exposition on Bierce's disappearance HERE
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![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/mystery-lights-logo-small.jpg) click to read
HOW BIERCE'S 'AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA'...![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/true-detective-2.jpg) ...influenced the writing of HBO's TRUE DETECTIVE. Louisiana cops Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson discover the symbols of a satanic cult of child killers. Read HERE
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The Many Deaths of Ambrose Bierce Forrest Gander in The Paris Review of Oct. 17, 2014, writes of the innumerable theories about Bierce's mysterious death. "According to witnesses, Bierce died over and over again, all over Mexico..." Read HERE
Ambrose Bierce and the David Lang HoaxIn 1880, an Alabama farmer mysteriously disappears -- allegedly in full view of his family and neighbors. Was it a hoax? Did Ambrose Bierce base his famous story "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field" on the tale of the vanishing farmer? Read: HERE
"Collecting Ambroses" Unintended whimsy by CHARLES FORT: HERE
The Oxoxoco Bottle
Author Gerald Kersh came up with a yarn in the 1950s about Bierce being fattened up by cannibals in Mexico. It appeared in Kersh's story collection Men Without Bones and was republished in The Saturday Evening Post. Details HERE [scroll down] .
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![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-astrologer-3.jpg) Superstitious ignorance and mysticism? Bierce nails it.
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NOT FAMOUS?
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/bierce-magazine-cover-montage.jpg) Some recent Bierce magazine covers. Click HERE
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![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/joshi-logo-2.jpg) Don Swaim interviews S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Ambrose Bierce -- and the weird tale.
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/benet-bierce-logo.jpg) Stephen Vincent Benét, Ambrose Bierce, and Me
EDITOR MEETS
"THE MASTER"![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/don-ambrose-2a.jpg) Composite illustration by K.A. Silva pictures Don Swaim, who edits The Ambrose Bierce Site, and Ambrose Bierce in the library of William Randolph Hearst's Castle, San Simeon, California. Note the incongruity of the ornate cross behind Bierce. click to enlarge
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Drawing of Ambrose Bierce © Matthew & Eve Levine 2012. Limited edition prints and licensing opportunities available through D. Levine Ink.
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Don Swaim's definitive article, "Ambrose & Henry," is in the spring 2011 edition of the online scholarly publication Menckeniana, all about H.L. Mencken, published by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore. To read the actual issue go to: Menckeniana. Courtesy Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore.
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The Ambrose Bierce Site invites original articles, fiction, poetry, art related to the mind and myth of Ambrose Bierce.
![](/web/20200725045601im_/http://donswaim.com/donswaimcom2.jpg)
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