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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... Tales of Soldiers and Civilians , I wish to thank Michael Plunkett , director of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library . Introduction In 1962 , fifty years after the last volume.
... volume of Ambrose Bierce's Collected Works was 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 ...
... volume with its twenty - two stories , and the literary talents of the author , to the attention of a national audience . This publication was eventually fol- lowed by the production of twelve volumes of diverse material in The Col ...
... volumes of the Collected Works , there is a large mass of Bierce material that remains known but largely unread . If not always literary itself , this material is often an important source of infor- mation about Bierce's literary ...
... volume and bits and pieces culled by Bierce for inclusion in various projects — such as his poetry and essays — and his Examiner - based Span- ish - American War writings , which have been edited by Lawrence Berkove and published in ...
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 |