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The Devil's Dictionary de Ambrose Bierce

The Devil's Dictionary

Autor Ambrose Bierce
en Limba Engleză Paperback

The Devil's Dictionary

by Ambrose Bierce

A CLASSIC

The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American journalist and author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book, it features Bierce's witty and often ironic spin on many common English words. Retitled in 1911, it has been followed by numerous "unabridged" versions compiled after Bierce's death, which include definitions absent from earlier editions.

The Devil's Dictionary began as a serialized column during Bierce's time as a columnist for the San Francisco News Letter, a small weekly financial magazine founded by Frederick Marriott in the late 1850s. Although a serious magazine aimed at businessmen, the News Letter contained a page of informal satirical content titled "The Town Crier." Bierce, hired as the "Crier"'s editor in December 1868, wrote satire with such irreverence and lack of inhibition he was nicknamed "the laughing devil of San Francisco."

Bierce resigned from "The Town Crier" and spent three years in London. Returning to San Francisco in 1875, he made two submissions to the News Letter in hopes of regaining his old position. Both were written under aliases. One, entitled "The Demon's Dictionary," contained Bierce's definitions for 48 words. Later forgotten in his compiling of The Devil's Dictionary, they were added almost a century later to an Enlarged Devil's Dictionary published in 1967.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781533666529
ISBN-10: 1533666520
Pagini: 132
Dimensiuni: 216 x 279 x 7 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg

Descriere

Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
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 consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all two. Self-Esteem, n. An erroneous appraisement. These caustic aphorisms, collected in The Devil's Dictionary, helped earn Ambrose Bierce the epithets Bitter Bierce, the Devil's Lexicographer, and the Wickedest Man in San Francisco. First published as The Cynic's Word Book (1906) and later reissued under its preferred name in 1911, Bierce's notorious collection of barbed definitions forcibly contradicts Samuel Johnson's earlier definition of a lexicographer as a harmless drudge. There was nothing harmless about Ambrose Bierce, and the words he shaped into verbal pitchforks a century ago--with or without the devil's help--can still draw blood today.

Recenzii

'The corrosive insights of Ambrose Bierce seem as bitter and fresh as ever. He handles words with delicious precision'
'If one book should be issued to every child at birth, this is it ... What is extraordinary about Bierce's waspish definitions is how accurate they seem, more than a century after he wrote them ... This edition is exuberantly illustrated by Ralph Steadman ... Everyone should buy this, and learn from it'
'A superb book. Steadman has always been one of my heroes'
'An American classic, some of its charming (and cynical) definitions are uncannily appropriate to our own day and would make it, I fancy, an ideal Christmas stocking present'

Notă biografică

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was an American novelist and short story writer. Born in Meigs County, Ohio, Bierce was raised Indiana in a poor family who treasured literature and extolled the value of education. Despite this, he left school at 15 to work as a printer¿s apprentice, otherwise known as a ¿devil¿, for the Northern Indianan, an abolitionist newspaper. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he enlisted in the Union infantry and was present at some of the conflict¿s most harrowing events, including the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. During the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, Bierce¿by then a lieutenant¿suffered a serious brain injury and was discharged the following year. After a brief re-enlistment, he resigned from the Army and settled in San Francisco, where he worked for years as a newspaper editor and crime reporter. In addition to his career in journalism, Bierce wrote a series of realist stories including ¿An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge¿ and ¿Chickamauga,¿ which depict the brutalities of warfare while emphasizing the psychological implications of violence. In 1906, he published The Devil¿s Dictionary, a satirical dictionary compiled from numerous installments written over several decades for newspapers and magazines. In 1913, he accompanied Pancho Villäs army as an observer of the Mexican Revolution and disappeared without a trace at the age of 71.