A Satirical Work
"In these cantankerous political times, how can one not adopt a cynic's view as the only sane filter on our world, a world "spinning" out of control with the divisive hyperbole of pundits and polls. In this dictionary from the late 1800's, Ambrose Bierce skewers far more than the world of politics but it is the political realm where Bierce's observations are astonishingly and depressingly relevant a century later."¹ - Richard Gingras
Ambrose Bierce began what we now know as
The Devil's Dictionary in
1881, writing a weekly half-page column in the
San Francisco Wasp. Oddly enough, he began at the letter '
P', and then rambled his way through the alphabet until
1906, when the publisher
Doubleday published selected portions of his column as
The Cynic's Word Book - which ran from A to L. In
1911, Bierce himself completed the work, by publishing his definitions M to Z in Volume 7 of his Collected Works. The complete book has been published many times since, and comtinues to be read and appreciated today.
Despite its sometimes timeless humour and quotability, many parts of it are uncomfortable for the modern reader - it can hardly be said to be politically correct, and frequently, when dealing with non-Whites or non-Americans, his definitions may be seen as out of date and even degrading.
To fully appreciate the work, you must first understand the man himself - a highly critical journalist and observer, he cast a cynical eye on the world as he saw it. Reading it today, one should remember that those were different times indeed; The American Civil War was less than twenty years in the past when he began, and the social and political climate still nurtured many of the -ism which most of us find abhorrent today.
His redefinitions of many everyday words did make people think differently about the world, and are eminently quotable, many having made their way into the Unix program fortune. Read it with an open mind, a sense of humour and perspective, and enjoy.
http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/
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¹ http://www.devilsdictionary.org/