Ambrose Bierce scrisse numerosi racconti dell’orrore e del soprannaturale, generi che riflettevano il suo profondo tormento interiore. Questa raccolta contiene molte tra le sue più suggestive storie di fantasmi e di case infestate: morbose, ciniche, inquietanti, capaci di trascinare il lettore nelle regioni crepuscolari dello spirito e nei più oscuri recessi della mente.Opere cariche di terrore ma, al contempo, pervase di tetra ironia, con echi di Poe, del romanzo gotico e dei racconti romantici, dotate dell’impronta inconfondibile di un autore che ha conosciuto di persona gli spettri che da sempre tormentano l’umanità.I personaggi di Bierce — poeti posseduti, vili aristocratici, professionisti abbietti, corpi rianimati, malfattori perseguitati — vivono in un mondo misero e perverso. Che si tratti di omicidi, vendette dall’oltretomba, sparizioni inspiegabili, dimore infestate o anime inquiete, le storie di Bierce rappresentano uno dei migliori esempi di narrativa soprannaturale di tutti i tempi e hanno ispirato autori come Robert W. Chambers e H.P. Lovecraft.

In this dictionary Bierce compiles the canon of human weaknesses, prejudices, absurdities and habits. The subtle, nasty ”definitions” of words expose the very aspect in them that normal consciousness hypocritically tries to cover up. Over 1,000 barbed and brilliant definitions by the 19th-century journalist and satirist often called “the American Swift.”First published as “The Cynic’s Word Book” (1906) and later reissued under its preferred name in 1911, Bierce’s notorious collection of barbed definitions forcibly contradicts Samuel Johnson’s earlier definition of a lexicographer as a harmless drudge. There was nothing harmless about Ambrose Bierce, and the words he shaped into verbal pitchforks a century ago–with or without the devil’s help–can still draw blood today.The American writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) had not only a sharp tongue, but also a pointed feather. He was one of the most dazzling figures in 19th-century literary America – the personified provocation and a hateful cynic who left no subject out. No matter whether it was about general, small or great weaknesses of the human race – nothing was sacred to his mockery. He became famous with his “Devil´s Dictionary”, a collection of gallant and pointedly spiritual aphorisms.The size of the eBook is about 180 pages.