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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... published , Lawrence Berkove , in his groundbreaking dissertation , " Ambrose Bierce's Concern with Mind and Man , " identified the necessity for scholars to divorce their criticism of Bierce's fiction from the cult of Bierce the man ...
... published by Frank Pixley and Fred Somers , and through the 1892 publication of his collection of Civil War and civilian- based short stories , " Prattle " provided Bierce with a platform for communi- cating his views on a wide range of ...
... published by Walter Neale between 1909 and 1912. The second volume of this work , In the Midst of Life ( Tales of Soldiers and Civilians ) , published in 1909 and containing twenty - six stories , was a much expanded and altered version ...
... published his column on a weekly basis in the Examiner from March 1887 through December 1895. While largely outside ... publish " Prattle " ( replaced by " War Topics " during the Spanish - American War ) , his position at the ...
... published in the pages of Cosmopolitan in 1909 . Throughout its run , " Prattle " was wide ranging in its material : literary criticism rubbed shoulders with political and cultural commentaries and per- sonal attacks , and excerpts of ...
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 |