Who was Ambrose Bierce

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A.� American, cynic, American newspaper columnist, satirist, and novelist. Most famous for his Devil's Dictionary - and vanishing mysteriously.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Biography

A.� Ambrose Gwinett Bierce was born near Horse Cave Creek, Meigs County, Ohio, on 24 June, 1842. He was youngest of 10 children born to Marcus and Laura Bierce. When he was four, the family moved to Walnut Creek, Indiana. In 1857 Bierce became a printer's devil - apprentice and errand-boy - for The Northern Indianan newspaper in the town of Warsaw.

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Q.� These were troubled times in the States

A.� Yes - the civil war was brewing. Bierce went to the Kentucky Military Institute for a year in 1859 and enlisted two years later as a private in Company C of the 9th Regiment, Indiana Volunteers. He first saw military action in a skirmish with Confederates at Philippi, Virginia, in June, 1861. After three tours of duty, he finished as a major in 1865. His battle experiences were later to feature in his stories.

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Q.� After the war

A.� He settled in San Francisco and got a job as watchman at the US Sub-Treasury. There he began his journalistic career, contributing to a number of periodicals, including the Overland Monthly and the Californian. In 1868 he became the editor of the News Letter. After his marriage to Molly Day, a wealthy miner's daughter, Bierce went to England. He lived in London from 1872 to 1875, and wrote sketches for the magazines Figaro and Fun.

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Q.� Fun I thought he was a cynic.

A.� Indeed he was. Probably his most celebrated tale is An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. It's chilling.

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Q.� How so

A.� It begins: 'A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water 20ft below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck.' Then a miracle happens - the rope breaks, and the man - Peyton Farquhar - escapes execution and returns to his wife at his plantation. In the end Bierce, however, reveals that this is mere fantasy. 'Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge.' Horrible, isn't it

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Q.� Yes. What about his dictionary

A.� In 1877, Bierce became associate editor of the San Francisco Argonaut, mixing his journalism with a little goldmining in Dakota. He later joined the San Francisco Examiner and wrote a column, The Prattler, which was a mixture of literary gossip, epigrams, and stories. He then collected his cruel epigrams and aphorisms in The Cynic's Word Book (1906). When he edited his 12-volume Collected Works (1909-1912), however, he changed the title of this work to The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

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Q.� Examples

A.� Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.�

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Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

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Q.� Ouch! What of his private life

A.� Unhappy. In 1896 Bierce moved to Washington DC and contributed to the New York Journal, the San Francisco Examiner, and Cosmopolitan magazine. His marriage started to fall apart, and he turned to drink. His son, Day, had run away from home at 15. Day killed a rival suitor of a 16-year-old girl, and committed suicide. His other son, Leigh, died of died of pneumonia after a drunken spree at the age of 26. The cynic had good cause for his misanthropy.

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Q.� And his disappearance

A.� Late in 1913, at the age of 71, Bierce decides to go to Mexico to aid revolutionary Pancho Villa. The last communication from him is on 26 December - a letter to his secretary saying that Villa's rebels are ready to attack federal troops.

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Q.� Then what

A.� Nobody knows. One report said he was shot by firing squad on Villa's orders - apparently because he drank too much tequila.� Another version says he never went to Mexico at all but, instead, committed suicide in the Grand Canyon.

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Q.� To sum up

A.� An enigma. He was a contemporary of Mark Twain, and could have been as good as him - but never had the attention span to complete a novel.

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Steve Cunningham