The Short Fiction of Ambrose Bierce: A Comprehensive Edition. Edited by S. T. Joshi, Lawrence I. Berkove, and David E. Schultz. (Knoxville:  University of Tennessee Press, 2006)

DURING HIS LIFETIME Ambrose Bierce published over four million words, most appearing in the San Francisco Examiner and other papers belonging to the Hearst chain.  Although he also wrote poetry and short fiction, Bierce's literary reputation emerged from his work as a brilliant and cantankerous journalist.  For decades he wrote weekly for a wide readership, developing his powers as an art critic, social commentator, and true master of the English language.  Some scholars still insist that Bierce's greatest contribution to American letters can be found in his boldly satirical columns.  But especially since the first quarter of the twentieth century, popular memory of his journalism has faded while the stock of his short fiction has risen significantly.  The reasons behind this shift are many, one being that schoolchildren and college students typically read literature anthologies rather than the yellowed pages of century-old newspapers.  As a result, successive generations of Americans have viewed Bierce less as a journalist than as an author of tales: particularly a handful of oft-anthologized war stories including "A Horseman in the Sky," "Chickamauga," and the ubiquitous "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."  Many of these fictions first appeared in the pages of the Examiner, but others saw print in literary journals or in the collections Bierce published between 1873 and 1912. 

The most accessible and famous of these stories were collected by Ernest J. Hopkins in 1970 and published under the title The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce.  The book contained ninety-three stories and ran just under 500 pages, making it far easier to parse than the twelve-volume Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, arranged by the writer himself between 1909 and 1912.  Bierce somewhat haphazardly filled those volumes with selections of satire, journalism, nonfiction, autobiography, fables, and fiction.  By contrast, Hopkins's collection brought the short fiction together within a single volume and divided the stories (even if imperfectly) by subject and purpose. Specifically, Hopkins saw the fictions in terms of three loose categories: horror stories, war stories, and tall tales.  Although other compilations of Bierce's fiction surely exist, the Complete Short Stories has remained the standard edition for most lay readers—and more than a few scholars. 

But how complete is the Complete Short Stories?  Not very, according to the University of Tennessee Press.  This fall the press released a new, three-volume edition of Bierce's collected short stories under the title The Short Fiction of Ambrose Bierce: A Comprehensive Edition.  The work contains nearly 250 stories and spans a full 1,275 pages.  Unlike its predecessor, this edition features scholarly notes for each story, selected textual variants, a bibliography, index, appendices, and a chronological rather than thematic arrangement.  Most important, this edition contains a full 130 "hitherto lost, overlooked, or completely forgotten works of Bierce's short fiction" (xix).  Not all of these works can be described as fully-formed stories, but the unearthed sketches and fragments are themselves fascinating and deserving of inclusion.  So impressive are the scope and contents of the new edition that one can almost forgive its editors for dismissing Hopkins's earlier collection without so much as mentioning him by name: "[T]here has not existed until now a comprehensive collection of [Bierce’s] short fiction.  One book did presume to call itself The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce, but it did not even come near to being complete" (xviii).  As if these lines do not do enough to usher the older edition offstage, the new edition omits Hopkins entirely from its bibliography.  The message is clear: the Tennessee edition has supplanted all former collections of Bierce's short fiction, and should be considered the most complete and authoritative collection to date. 

It would seem impossible to argue otherwise. 

The editors are S.T. Joshi, Lawrence I. Berkove, and David E. Schultz, all of whom have previously edited works by Bierce.  Joshi and Schultz are known to Biercians as the editing team responsible for a spate of books published during the last ten years, including Ambrose Bierce: A Bibliography of Primary Sources (1999), The Fall of the Republic and Other Political Satires (2000), and A Much Misunderstood Man: Selected Letters of Ambrose Bierce (2003).  Berkove, himself the editor of a book of selected Bierce journalism entitled Skepticism and Dissent (1986), is most recently the author of A Prescription for Adversity: The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce (2002).  Berkove is the lone academic within the trio, an emeritus professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.  He may also be the foremost Biercian of his day, and his involvement lends this new edition scholarly weight. 

Berkove surely also helped to guide the arrangement of the edition.  In fact, certain remarks in the introduction will sound familiar to those readers familiar with A Prescription for Adversity, where Berkove similarly complains that Bierce's short fiction is too often studied by theme rather than by period.  Here the editors explain the rationale behind the chronological structure:

The chronological organization of this edition makes it clear to see that Bierce's career went through periods of development.  With most authors this would be so self-evident that it would not be worthy of mention, but, in the case of Bierce, criticism has not recognized this and has too often treated his fiction as if it had all been written at the same time. (xix)

Readers will understandably want to know which volumes contain the most interesting material.  The first volume of the edition spans the years between 1868 and 1886. The second volume concerns 1887-1893, and the third covers the years between 1895 and 1910. The editors admit that Bierce's most mature and accomplished fiction appeared during the late 1880s and early 1890s, predominantly those stories reprinted in Volume 2, but they argue that his early and late tales are important to a full appreciation of Bierce as an artist.  "[As] long as Bierce wrote," they stress, "he composed some noteworthy fiction, and some of his last stories show that he experienced a late resurgence of creative innovation before he ceased to write. What is most surprising is the overlooked production of his early period.  This edition proves that Bierce got off to a very fast start and that the early, short sketches include some unexpectedly fine accomplishments" (xix-xx). 

Perhaps cynical readers will view these lines as a mere justification for why one should not purchase the second volume alone.  But upon examining each volume in turn, one cannot help but agree that the early and late fictions are, in fact, essential to understanding Bierce's literary achievement.  When reading through some of the stories assembled in Volume 1, works such as "The Haunted Valley," "Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General," and "An Imperfect Conflagration," one appreciates Bierce’s early command of a broad range of styles, tones, and subject matter.  Indeed, it is not necessary to read these early tales through the lens of mid-career masterworks in order to recognize their artistry.  Nor are the works published in Volume 3, the fruits of Bierce’s later years, easy to dismiss.  Stories such as "Moxon's Master," "The Moonlit Road," and "A Resumed Identity" certainly stand out as late gems.  But readers will also find his late political satires arresting, and (as the editors imply) entirely relevant to American political discourse after 9/11. 

Of course, not all of the stories included in the first and third volumes are exceptional, or even particularly good.  We would argue, however, that these volumes represent the edition's most substantial contribution to Bierce studies, as the works published therein can enlarge our understanding of the writer's evolution as a thinker and moralist.  Numerous collections have reproduced many of the famous stories of Volume 2 over the years, especially the Civil War stories found in Bierce’s Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891).  But never before has a single edition charted how and when Bierce arrived at particular concepts and philosophical positions.  The early and late stories allow us to better appreciate how works such as "Owl Creek Bridge" and "A Son of the Gods" contributed to a lifelong study of man, his perceptions, and his institutions.

One truly excellent feature of this edition is the presence of scholarly notes for each story, an attribute wholly absent from Hopkins's collection and most other editions on the market today.  These notes provide scholars and students with useful bibliographical and contextual information—and therefore provide depth to complement the broad introductory essays that begin each section of the edition.  To begin, each story is followed by a summary of its original forum and date of publication, as well as by information about the tale's subsequent appearances in any collections organized by Bierce.  This bibliographic material is then typically supported by commentary intended to illuminate the place of the story within Bierce's larger career and, if appropriate, American letters as a whole.  Readers can therefore learn, for example, that the last sentence of "The Mocking-Bird" may anticipate Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms (794).  Admittedly, the editors do not greet every story with extensive commentary.  But they are surely the first to provide notes explaining the historical, cultural, and literary background of such obscure stories as "A Mournful Property" and "His Waterloo."  Particularly impressive, we believe, is the edition's democratic approach.  Although "Owl Creek Bridge" stands as Bierce's most famous story, the editors are careful not to overwhelm the reader with endless paragraphs of commentary and explanatory notes.  The result is a remarkably balanced edition, one interested in each story Bierce committed to the page regardless of its popular or critical reception.

Will readers cease to use Hopkins's edition entirely?  Certainly not.  Casual readers will continue to prize its portability and streamlined format.  And although Hopkins did not include sketches such as "Boys Who Began Wrong" and "A Cow-County Pleasantry," these works do not fully meet most readers' expectations for a proper narrative "story."  But there is no question that University of Tennessee Press edition will become an invaluable reference work for scholars of Bierce, as well as for advanced undergraduates for whom the critical notes and lesser-known stories will be especially welcome. Libraries will (and should) purchase the edition and make it available to the public.  Individuals will find the cost of the edition prohibitive, however, and may therefore choose to purchase only one or two of the volumes at fifty dollars apiece.  If so, they should invest in the first or third volumes rather than the second, as these include less accessible materials as well as an array of appendices.  Fortunately, the Press is advertising the three volumes together for $129, which may appeal to some readers and libraries for the reduced cost.

It has become something of a cliché in Bierce studies for each new book or edition to announce its aim of rescuing the writer from critical neglect.  Joshi, Berkove, and Schultz do not go so far as to assert that this "comprehensive" edition of the short fiction will redefine the prevailing portrait of Bierce.  They do, however, believe that their work will eliminate one obstacle preventing any reappraisal:

The neglect that has characterized Bierce scholarship has been abetted to no small degree by the absence of editions of his work beyond what is gathered in the Collected Works.  This edition rectifies that situation insofar as his short fiction is concerned.  Thus it establishes the necessary condition for a reassessment of this exceptional author. (xxiv)

The three are quite right to state that Bierce was, and remains, an exceptional talent.  Moreover, they are correct to say that this edition stands as a major contribution to the study of his life and work.  The Short Fiction of Ambrose Bierce: A Comprehensive Edition is one of the most important and impressive works of Bierce scholarship ever published.

CRAIG A. WARREN
TRACIE KENDZIORA
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