Printer's Devil


Printer's Devil

Originally shared by The Cloberth

“History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.”

Printer’s Devil
Born at Horse Cave Creek on this date in 1842, Ambrose Bierce, American critic, satirist and short story writer. Bierce came into this world in an Ohio log cabin. His parents, poor but educated, “instilled in him a deep love for books and writing”. Following service in the Union army, Bierce began his literary career writing for San Francisco periodicals. During the 1870s, he spent four years in England, where his first book was published. He returned to San Francisco, where he worked for William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers until 1906.  As a journalist he gained a national reputation with his muckraking expose of secret government agreements with the railroad industry. He disappeared in 1913, accompanying Pancho Villa's army, as an observer, during the Mexican Revolution. 
He is remembered most today for The Devils Dictionary and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
From The Devils Dictionary: 
Man – “An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.”

Ambrose Bierce at Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/206
Much ado about Bierce:
http://donswaim.com/

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