The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

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By: Ambrose Bierce, David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi
(11 customer reviews)
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EDITORIAL REVIEW

If we could only put aside our civil pose and say what we really thought, the world would be a lot like the one alluded to in Bierce's dictionary. There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen", and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another". This is a comprehensive, authoritative edition of a satiric masterpiece. This virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth. This edition is based on David E. Shultz and S.T. Joshi's investigation into the book's writing and publishing history. All of Bierce's known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly 200 wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.

PRODUCT DETAILS

Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr
Pub. Date: 30th June 2000
Catalog: Book
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Pages: 404
Ean: 9780820321967
Isbn: 0820321966

ABOUT THIS BOOK

USER REVIEWS

Required reference book
~ Written on Jan 11, 2009. out of users found this review helpful.

What can we say about the clever Mr Bierce? His work is the epitome of satire. Keep this book for reference on your desk at work, at home, in the car, etc.

The Devil's Dictionary
~ Written on Sep 7, 2008. out of users found this review helpful.

The basic version, by Ambrose Bierce, is a classic. The annotated version expands on both the content and the usefulness of the volume. A copy should be on everyone's bookshelf.

Attempting to do it justice
~ Written on Jul 10, 2008. 1 out of 1 users found this review helpful.

If poetry and sarcasm had a wild affair, and the more feminine of the two (poetry, I suppose) had a love child nine months later, it would take form in this book. Bitter Bierce defines everything from Saints ("a dead sinner revised and edited") to Egotists("a person of low taste, more interested in himself than me") with a snarl of disgust, appreciating only the flaws in our pitiful species.
*(this is where the disclaimer should go) Not recommended for anyone of the Judeo-Christian religion, Politicians, or anyone with an ounce of optimism left in their lives.

Bitter Bierce at his very best...
~ Written on Dec 5, 2007. 2 out of 2 users found this review helpful.

Also known as "The Cynic's Workbook" this collection is classic and belongs in any library. Ambrose Bierce, like Mark Twain and few other of his contempories, had a biting wit that always left a mark.
Here is just a taste of his humor.

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

Good good stuff.


A classic
~ Written on Oct 30, 2007. 3 out of 3 users found this review helpful.

Still haven't found any real competitor for the Devils Dictionary.

Sheer honesty abounds. The insurance agent that came by my place rapidly deflated when I showed him the entry for "insurance" while (to his credit) acknowledged its veracity...

"an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table."

(followed by a vicious, fictitious and brilliant dialogue between an agent and perspective mark wherein said agent tries to overcome the mark's observation that by the agent's own actuarial tables a home owner without insurance would most likely save the full value of the house in premiums well before any loss... )

And that's just one of hundreds of essays. One of my intellectual heroes.

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