Talk:Ambrose Bierce

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Contents 1 Commercial links 2 Devil's Dictionary entry? 3 Link suggestions 4 Appearances in literature 5 List of Short Stories 6 Railroad Refinancing Bill 7 Short Stories- Descriptions

[edit] Commercial links

The e-text list contains links to a very commercial site, abacci.com. Do we need those links in a site like wikipedia? The Devil's Dictionary, Fantastic Fables and some short stories of his are available in html and text formats at sites like Project Gutenberg's promo.net/pg, ipl.org, blackmask.com, etc. These sites don't even have pop-up ads and thus qualify to be linked in a site like this. Just my two paisa. - C

if you can replace commercial links with non-commercial equivalents, go for it! :-) -- Tarquin 19:17, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I did. :-)

[edit] Devil's Dictionary entry?

Perhaps a entry for The Devil's Dictionary should be created...? DryGrain 19:42, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Link suggestions

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[edit] Appearances in literature

If I recall correctly, Bierce made a significant appearance in one of Bradbury's tales, which I think should be mentioned here, but I don't have the book on hand at the moment. I'll try to remember to come back and add it when I have the reference, unless someone beats me to it. KathL 08:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, Bierce is a major character in Peter King's series of books about Jack London, though I've forgotten which of his books those were. Although I believe one was called the Jewel of the North. Caelicoli 08:04, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of Short Stories

The list of short stories is unbelievably incomplete. (For example: it lists some stories from Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, but not even close to all of them. In fact, it doesn't even include some of the stories mentioned elsewhere in the article.) Whether or not it should even be included is likely debatable, but I'll take a shot at expanding it when I get home and can get access to my volume of his collected fiction. (Of course, the question then becomes: does Fantastic Fables count as a collection of short stories or not?) 131.202.114.171 18:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I think on the whole you're right that the list doesn't belong in the article; a bibliography is all that's needed. I assume that that's what "Primary books" is meant to be; could that just be renamed "Bibliography" or "Publications", and the list of short stories removed? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:43, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It would have to be expanded a bit from its current state, but I think that would work. Since I never got around to doing the short stories list, I'll get on that now. g026r 02:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hrm. Turns out I'm missing publication dates on some books: The Monk & the Hangman's Daughter (although I believe this one is either 1891 or 1892. It was first serialised in '91, before it was published as a book.), and Fantastic Fables. I also am missing information on whether The Parenticide Club, and Negligible Tales were ever published as individual works, or only as parts of the various collected works. g026r 02:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, totally incomplete, and not required in this article. The bibliography and list of works is fine. Trying to list every short story (horror, war and tall tale), is ridiculuous. If it needs to be included, at all, it should be its own page, not on the main Bierce page. HæSúsê 18:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's just include the short stories at Wikisource. As you've said, all we need here is a bibliography that lists some anthologies. Galanskov 13:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Railroad Refinancing Bill

I don't have the details or a reference at hand, but when Bierce was a relatively young man he was sent from California to Washington, DC, by his publisher to oppose the Railroad Refinancing Bill, a daring piece of larceny by which the railroads which had been given large chunks of land from the public domain to finance the construction of transcontinental rail lines--on condition of paying for it as a loan, on very favorable terms--tried to have the repayment postponed exactly a hundred years. A crucial element of this plot was secrecy: the bill was to be voted on without any public mention of its contents. Bierce's main effort, therefore, was to make the bill public knowledge. He did, and forced the defeat of the bill. J S Ayer 03:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, an episode, perhaps this one, is described in Richard O'Connor's Ambrose Bierce: a Biography. Bierce thereby earned the hatred, I believe, of Collis P. Huntington. If someone has the time to look the incident up, it would be well worth adding to the section on Bierce's journalism career. logologist|Talk 08:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Short Stories- Descriptions

The list of short stories is ok but there are only descriptions to only a few, quite sad really. "The death of halpin Frayser" is a wonderful short story, as well as "The Damned Thing" These are his most popular stories, yet the only remotely popular story with a description is "Moxon's Master" Maybe I or someone else could fill in some of the more important blanks. Just a thought. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hewhoisiam (talk • contribs) 14:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

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Who was Dod Grile? Is this a pen name? Bastie 11:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)