The Devil's Dictionary

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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.

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.

'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'