An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories

Before he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as "bitter Bierce" and "the devil's lexicographer." He left behind a nasty reputation and more than 90 short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius. This volume of selected stories represents an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time. ''An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,'' the premier title in this collection, is one of the most widely anthologized American short stories and is considered Bierce's best work. First published in 1891 in Bierce's short story collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, the story centers on Peyton Farquhar, a southern planter who is about to be hanged by the Union Army for attempting to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl