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From the beginning of his career, Ambrose Bierce wrote stories of all different types-humorous sketches, satirical squibs, and weird tales. This volume prints some of his most memorable fiction-his tales of psychological and supernatural horror. Bierce was a profound student of the psychology of fear, and his tales depicted human beings succumbing to the fear of death ( A Watcher by the Dead ), fear of wild animals ( The Man and the Snake,
The Eyes of the Panther ), and the inhumanity of human beings against their own kind ( A Holy Terror,
A Baby Tramp ).
Other tales venture into the supernatural, introducing the notion of revenants ( The Death of Halpin Frayser ), ghosts ( The Moonlit Road ), and haunted houses ( The Boarded Window ). Some stories are forward-looking tales of science fiction ( The Damned Thing,
Moxon’s Master ), while others appear to be parodies of the fashionable spiritualism of the day.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) was the leading American writer of weird fiction between Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Having served in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, Bierce settled in San Francisco, where he became a fearless journalist and satirist, attacking corrupt politicians, long-winded clerics, wretched poetasters, and others who incurred his wrath. The stories in this volume are presented in definitive texts based on a consultation of manuscripts and early publications. They are edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Bierce and weird fiction.
