In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

by Ambrose Bierce

Soldiers. A horseman in the sky --
An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge --
Chickamauga --
A son of the gods : a study in the present tense --
One of the missing --
Killed at Resaca --
The affair at Coulter's Notch --
The coup de grâce --
Parker Adderson, philosopher --
An affair of outposts --
The story of a conscience --
One kind of officer --
One officer, one man --
George Thurston : three incidents in the life of a man --
The mocking-bird --

Civilians. The man out of the nose --
An adventure at Brownville --
The famous Gilson bequest --
The applicant --
A watcher by the dead --
The man and the snake --
A holy terror --
The suitable surroundings --
The boarded window --
The lady from Redhorse --
The eyes of the panther.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, War, Horror

192 pages, Paperback

Published August 18, 1998

About the author

died perhaps 1914

Caustic wit and a strong sense of horror mark works, including In the Midst of Life (1891-1892) and The Devil's Dictionary (1906), of American writer Ambrose Gwinett Bierce.

People today best know this editorialist, journalist, and fabulist for his short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his lexicon.

The informative sardonic view of human nature alongside his vehemence as a critic with his motto, "nothing matters," earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce."

People knew Bierce despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, to encourage younger poet George Sterling and fiction author W.C. Morrow.

Bierce employed a distinctive style especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events.

Bierce disappeared in December 1913 at the age of 71 years. People think that he traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on ongoing revolution of that country.

Theories abound on a mystery, ultimate fate of Bierce. He in one of his final letters stated: "Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!"

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ambrose Bierce is a criminally underrated author. His "An Occurence at Owlcreek Bridge" is one of the most famous short stories ever written, yet most of his other works seem to have been forgotten.

This book was originally published in 1891 under the title "Tales of Soldiers and Civilians". Bierce himself fought for the Union Army at the Battle of Shiloh, and his stories clearly reflect the horrors he observed in the field.

From The Affair at Coulter's Notch:

The men? - they looked like demons of the pit! All were hatless, all stripped to the waist, their reeking skins black with blotches of powder and spattered with gouts of blood. They worked like madmen, with rammer and cartridge, lever and lanyard. They set their swollen shoulders and bleeding hands against the wheels at each recoil and heaved the heavy gun back to its place. There were no commands; in that awful environment of whooping shot, exploding shells, shrieking fragments of iron, and flying splinters of wood, none could have been heard. Officers, if officers there were, were indistinguishable; all worked together - each while he lasted . . .

"Bitter Bierce" wrote stories seeped in death and tragedy, his works spiced with sardonic wit instead of folksy wisdom.

There was little attempt at identification, though in most cases, the burial parties being detailed to glean the same ground which they had assisted to reap, the names of the victorious dead were known and listed. The enemy's fallen had to be content with counting. But of that they got enough: many of them were counted several times, and the total, as given afterward in the official report of the victorious commander, denoted rather a hope than a result.

Bierce's Civil War Stories is still in print, and I would urge you to read it.

Bierce himself headed into Mexico in 1913, where he vanished without a trace . . . a fitting ending that could have been taken directly from one of his stories.

[Char]

I'm setting this audio book aside. I still love the story Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge but the rest of them are not doing anything for me. I understood when I checked it out that this was not a collection of horror stories, but I still thought I would find something of interest here. Unfortunately, I did not.

Set aside for now to possibly try again at a later time.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a collection of short stories. Now, I don't read a lot of these, because they always manage to disappoint me to some degree....not long enough, not short enough, I want more, and sometimes, they are so predictable. But I liked these grim little tales. Some of these will be with me for a long time. I wish I had liked them all though.

This was originally published in 1891, and this author did a great job. I loved his wording. I listened to the audio and loved all the contributing narrators. They did a wonderful job. I was giving this 3 stars, but I think I just talked myself into 4.

[Illiterate · Rating 1 out of 5]

War stories tinged with horror. Heavy-handed twists and endings.

[Aloysius · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ambrose Bierce, it would seem, was the M. Night Shyamalan of his day. There's a great deal to admire here, a phenomenal talent for presenting haunting images, particularly the battlefield imagery in his Civil War stories. The lost deaf boy in "Chickamauga" wandering through the battlefields as dying men, one having lost the lower part of his face, crawl along the ground in the opposite direction, is a scene straight out of the annals of hell. "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," in which a Southern civilian being hanged for attempting to burn down a bridge important to the Union cause experiences a vivid dream of escape within the last few moments of his life, is the classic here, and deservedly so. But the stories are probably best encountered in anthologized form because, as with O. Henry, each and every one works in service of a twist ending that comes to seem trite after the first handful of tales. Either that, or it's best read slowly, a book to pull off the shelf every once in a while to read a handful. To try to push through the entirety of the collection otherwise proves a test of endurance.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐
THE SUITABLE SURROUNDINGS: 4⭐
The Night ✔
The Day Before ✔
The Day After ✔
The Manuscript ✔

SOLDIERS
A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY 3.5⭐
AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE 5⭐
CHICKAMAUGA 4.5⭐
A SON OF THE GODS 4⭐
ONE OF THE MISSING 5⭐
KILLED AT RESACA 4⭐
THE AFFAIR AT COULTER'S NOTCH 5⭐
A TOUGH TUSSLE 5⭐
THE COUP DE GRACE 5⭐
PARKER ADDERSCN, PHILOSOPHER 4⭐

CIVILIANS
A WATCHER BY THE DEAD 3.5⭐
THE MAN AND THE SNAKE 5⭐
A HOLY TERROR 4⭐
AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA 4.5⭐
THE BOARDED WINDOW 4⭐
THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT 3.5⭐
HAITA THE SHEPHERD 3.5⭐
AN HEIRESS FROM REDHORSE 3⭐

[Monical · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories from this author from the 1870's. About half are about the Civil War (in which the author served for the Union, enlisting as a teenager). The collection includes the story "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which is well-known from a Twilight Zone episode. Most of the stories have a supernatural twist. I had read other collections by the author and I remembered the stories being better, and scarier, than on this read. Still, a "blast from the past!"

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I purchased this "complete and unabridged" collection specifically to read An Inhabitant Of Carcosa as part of my journey to trace the lineage of H.P. Lovecraft and cosmic horror as a genre back to its roots, only to find that it, as well as many of his other stories relating to the supernatural have been cut out and put into an entirely different volume. Very irritating.

Many of the short stories in this collection are, by today's standards, rather silly and often nonsensical in their construction and endings, making frequent use of the non-sequitur ending that seems common to short-form horror of the time (from my past experiences with his contemporaries). Bierce also pulls the "and he was dead the whole time" trope several times, and has characters dying of fright for little-to-no reason much too often for belief, leading to some of the stories not only falling flat in the frights department, but also just feeling cheap in general, like chaff for a local newspaper.

If you're looking for sincere horror, the visceral brutality of the Civil War depicted in the "Soldiers" section might speak to you, but aside from the violence, the actual "horror" depicted is, at its best, generally very subtle and nuanced, and at its worst, incredibly tame to the point you could read some of these to a child and they'd still be able to sleep at night. A Civil War buff might get more out of this than I did, but unless you're really itching for mediocre horror, I'd recommend skipping this collection.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians was Bierce’s first major collection of stories; it is divided into two sections, “Soldiers”, which contains fifteen stories about the Civil War, including his most famous (and by far best) story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, and “Civilians”, which contains eleven stories, nearly all horror stories, one or two with possible paranormal elements (only the last story, “The Eyes of the Panther” is definitely paranormal) but most simply psychological.

All the stories are individually good, but they lose a lot by being collected, since there is much repetition of themes and technique; for example, many of the Civil War stories have nearly the same “surprise ending”, which after the first story the reader is looking for. The style has elements of Romanticism (nearly all of them depend upon multiple coincidences) and of Naturalism (some of the Civil War stories will remind the reader of The Red Badge of Courage), but the labels aren’t really important. I would recommend this as a quick and enjoyable read.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

H.L. Mencken's assessment of Bierce, whom he knew, is largely correct: the Civil War veteran is a razor-sharp stylist, albeit weirdly schoolmarmish in much of his polished-to-a-fine-sheen prose (don't expect the man to ever split an infinitive or dangle a participle), and his Civil War stories ("George Thurston," about an officer dying senselessly while trying to swing from a rope, is a banger, as are "One Kind of Officer" and "One Officer, One Man"...while "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," his most anthologized work, and "Chickiamauga" are GOAT-tier short stories on a par with "The Necklace," "The Overcoat," and "God Sees the Truth, But Waits") are many orders of magnitude better than his conventional ghost stories (a few complicated oddities, like "The Boarded Window" and its precise yet deliberately misleading narrative, are the exceptions that prove the rule...but much of this, fine lines aside, is quite formulaic). Recommended because this guy, far from being a lesser Twain or Poe, is very much his own sort of all-American, work-doing superhack (a hack so good and a writer so experienced in the game of life that even his makework is capable of entering the canon)

[Lj · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s difficult overall to rate a collection of stories. This book varied in interest for me. Some of the writing here is phenomenal but many of the stories are uninteresting. An occurrence at owl creek is the best one by far. Still, an interesting piece of American literature non the less.

[André Bernhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite old-fashioned

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Public Domain • FREE Kindle Download • Gutenberg.org

No one should be allowed to advocate war
UNLESS they have read this book
AND enlist to serve in the front lines.
If you're going to talk the talk, walk the walk.

The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 2:
In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

Ambrose G. Bierce (USA, 1842 – circa 1914).
Journalist · Writer • Civil War Soldier & Battle Veteran (1861-1866).
The sardonic view of human nature that informed his work – along with his vehemence as a critic, with his motto "nothing matters" – earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce."... though he was known to encourage younger writers ...
Bierce employed a distinctive style of writing, especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events.
Bierce is a master of the surprise ending. As a veteran of the American Civil War (and like many veterans) anger simmers just below the surface ... in his life and in his stories. - GR

SOLDIERS
1. A Horseman in the Sky
2. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
3. Chickamauga
4. A Son of the Gods
5. One of the Missing
6. Killed at Resaca
7. The Affair at Coulter's Notch
8. The Coup De Grâce
9. Parker Adderson, Philosopher
10. An Affair of Outposts
11. The Story of a Conscience
12. One Kind of Officer
13. One Officer, One Man
14. George Thurston
15. The Mocking-Bird

CIVILIANS
1. The Man Out of the Nose
2. An Adventure at Brownville
3. The Famous Gilson Bequest
4. The Applicant
5. A Watcher by the Dead
6. The Man and the Snake
7. A Holy Terror
8. The Suitable Surroundings
9. The Boarded Window
10. A Lady from Red Horse
11. The Eyes of the Panther

[Mads Motema · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of these stories are really neat. However, they all kinda follow a very similar structure, the climax of the story being „oh this person he killed was a person somehow connected to the protagonist and because he was so shocked, he died“ in some shape or form, so if you read all of the stories, it somehow loses its potency because you just see it coming. Yeah, the confederate soldier he kills is his brother or smth oh wow i am SO surprised because that hasn’t been the twist of the last 10 stories. In itself, the stories are really neat though and i really enjoyed some of them (and some of them i didn’t because... ya know, casual racism and misogyny of the late 19th century), it’s just really really tiring to read all of those short stories.
The soldiers stories all boil down to „bruh war sure is fucked up“ and contain so much stilted military talk that made it hard to focus. The civilian stories all boil down to „people are stupid, they get scared so easily by their own imagination“ and idk man, they all just feel so incredibly similar, i couldn’t even tell you which story was what.
Stories that stood out to me and i found really remarkable though were „The coup de grâce“, „The Mockingbird“ and „An Adventure at Brownville“.

[Marc Severson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The irascible literary scion of the west coast in his day, Ambrose Bierce, with his poison-tipped pen, could make or break an author. His own works kept mainly to two genres: stories from his experiences in the Civil War and tales of terror and psychological torment. Bierce was also the master of a very small niche of stories: the humorous horror story.
I discovered an ancient edition of "In the Midst of Life" in our public library while I was still a high school student and he has been one of my favorite authors ever since. Few short stories, in my opinion, exceed the terror of stories like "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" or the pathos of "A Horseman in the Sky". The story "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been anthologized several times and was even produced as a Twilight Zone episode.
Bierce is also infamous for his "Devils Dictionary" a collection of alternate meanings for words: "Beauty, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband." "Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue."
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/b/bierc...

[Scott Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the outstanding finds of my reading career. Bierce is a phenomenal writer with a voice unlike any other. His stories dealing with the US Civil War in particular read with a psychological intensity beyond other American masters like Hawthorne or Poe. At times Bierce's prose reaches levels that are nearly Kafkaesque. Quickly one of my favorite of authors.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of short stories is divided into two parts: Soldiers and Civilians. I was taken by the Soldiers section. Ambrose made the Civil War come virtually alive in his telling of stories, each with a twist at the end. The brutality and futility of this war, is described in such a way that I was only able to read a story at a time. It was difficult because it was true.

[Book Club · Rating 4 out of 5]

DOUG'S PICK - Beach Book Club.

Betsy: 5
Wade: 4
Kathy: 4
Doug: 5

We had different editions, but we all loved the stories. How true and brutal the Civil War was. Bierce always had a twist to the ending.

[Adi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the stories were quite interesting, and I enjoyed that in most of them you can never be certain whether there is something supernatural around, or the characters' nerves are playing a trick on them. Towards the end of the book however, the dark tone of the stories got a bit overwhelming.

[Len Knighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambrose Bierce truly had a sense of the macabre and a preoccupation with death. For many, perhaps most, the subject matter of these stories is not attractive or palatable but the writing more than makes up for it.

Four stars

[JoAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Affair at Coulter's Notch really upset me, although I knew what the end had to be before I finished the story.
I have always liked An Occurrence at Owl Creek.

[Carey]

Ambrose Bierce was simply one of America's best writers!

[Keaton]

Read: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chickamauga," and "A Son of the Gods"

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short stories concerning battles/behavior during the American Civil War. Unexpected conclusions. Captivating.