The complete online text of The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.

The American writer Ambrose Gwinett Bierce (1842-ca. 1914) expressed the cynicism of the post-Civil War era and shaped both the materials and the methods of writers who later voiced the disillusionment following World War I. Ambrose Bierce was born in Me...

The late Carey McWilliams, himself an astute observer of the national scene, has pointed out that every American should have some familiarity with Ambrose Bierce, that aloof and independent iconoclast who was in the thick of some of the most important de...

The late Carey McWilliams, an astute observer of the national scene, has pointed out that every American should have some familiarity with Ambrose Bierce , that aloof and independent iconoclast who was in the thick of some of the most important developme...

Yes, it's back to the (Or)well again, "borrowing" column ideas from more successful writers. Today's unwitting donor: Ambrose Bierce, the California author and newspaperman whose mischievous "Devil's Dictionary," published in 1911, defined a cynic as "a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they...

THE FOLKS at Merriam-Webster, under pressure to change a series of dictionary definitions deemed offensive, are the latest in a long line of neutral noncombatants to get caught in the squeeze play of shifting language mores. The dictionary publishers have said they will not...