The Dance of Death

by William Herman, Ambrose Bierce

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1877 Original Publisher: The American News Company Subjects: Waltz Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary History / General Literary Criticism / General Performing Arts / Dance / General Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or an index. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.

cloth

First published January 1, 1877

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Joint pseudonym for Ambrose Bierce and his friends William A. Rudolfson and Thomas A. Harcouth under which The Dance of Death was published.

Reviews

[S.L. Baron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read for me.

I loved how the author poked fun at those who would call the Waltz evil all the while making it sound like the sexiest dance that ever existed.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This diatribe against dancing the waltz is so vehemently (and persistently) argued that one could easily believe the author seriously thinks the dance is a danger to women who fall under its perverse spell—that is, until you learn that William Herman is a pseudonym for Ambrose Bierce. It's an elaborate satire that deftly skewers moralism, penned by a master.

* Read as part of my Project Gutenberg Lotto quest, wherein I periodically use the "random" button on Project Gutenberg and read one of the books that comes up.

[Fred Conrad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Based on the title, I was expecting fiction. Turns out Bierce was bent way out of shape about the decadence of public dancing. Go figure. I was hoping they would be stuck dancing until they all dropped dead... no such luck.

[Jennifer Triplett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, so first off you have to know that Bierce's style is satire and that this isn't a serious piece. But it does poke great fun at people who are prudish and restrictive and if you know that going in, you'll enjoy it.

[Chris Passingham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't really aware that the waltz was seen as so scandalous to the Victorians. Bierce expended a lot of time and energy in writing what I believe is rather a heavy handed satire based on the contemporary criticisms of this particular dance

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

[Phil Gonzales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ridiculously contrived satire but so deftly handled and well constructed it's honestly a pleasure to read. Well played, sir.