Ambrose Bierce's Civilians and Soldiers in Context: A Critical StudyAmbrose Bierce's In the Midst of Life, the second volume of The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, is hailed by critics and scholars alike as his most important literary work. In Ambrose Bierce's Civilians and Soldiers in Context: A Critical Study, Donald T. Blume refutes this and instead identifies Bierce's original 1892 collection as his most definitive and authoritative work. The two subsequent collections, appearing in 1898 and 1909, although containing subtle clues pointing back to the importance of the 1892 collection, are in their primary effect literary red herrings. This new study reveals that the nineteen stories that comprised the original Tales of Soldiers and Civilians consist of carefully developed and interrelated meanings and themes that can only be fully understood by examining the complex circumstances of their original productions. By considering each of the nineteen tales in the order in which they were first published and by drawing heavily on contemporary related materials, Blume re-creates much of the original milieu into which Bierce carefully placed his short stories. Blume systematically examines many of Bierce's editing flaws, exposing that Bierce's decisions often weakened the original literary merits of his stories. Ultimately this story reveals, tale by tale and layer by layer, that the nineteen stories included in Bierce's 1892 collection were masterpieces of fiction, destined to become classics. Historians and Civil War enthusiasts, as well as literary scholars, will welcome this new study. |
From inside the book
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... clear that the decade of the 1870s was an interesting one for Bierce , but here the highlights will suffice . Following his December 25 , 1871 , marriage to Mary Ellen , or Mollie , Day , Bierce moved to England in the spring of 1872 ...
... clearly deducible that this person ought to be the most miserable of men , tormented of conscience , baffled by secret and overt antagonisms , hunted by the dogs of hate reared in his own kennels , and roosted on by homing curses ...
... clear , the story is also a particularly appropriate and illustra- tive opening subject for this study . A central feature of Bierce's treatment of " A Holy Terror " concerns the way he used his editorial position at the Wasp to ...
... clearly intended that some of them would discover the secrets of his tale on the strength of their own probing intellects . Helping to facilitate this outcome , in the months leading up to the publica- tion of " A Holy Terror , " Bierce ...
... Clearly relishing his role , Bierce , in the next paragraph of the editorial , gladly ladles out the Wasp's peculiar blend of Christmas spirit in even more refulgent terms . Here too elements of " A Holy Terror " surface : This is a ...
Contents
1 | |
34 | |
Killed at Resaca | 64 |
One of the Missing | 83 |
A Son of the Gods | 99 |
A Tough Tussle | 114 |
Chickamauga | 124 |
The Horseman in the Sky | 145 |
The Watcher by the Dead | 193 |
The Man and the Snake | 203 |
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge | 211 |
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot | 244 |
Haïta the Shepherd | 259 |
James Adderson Philosopher and Wit | 276 |
An Heiress from Redhorse | 302 |
The Boarded Window | 315 |
The Coup de Grâce | 161 |
The Suitable Surroundings | 179 |
The Affair at Coulters Notch | 185 |
The Collections | 329 |