“Dictionary, n: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most usefu

The Devil's Dictionary, begun as a weekly column when Bierce was a journalist, and developed into a full-scale satire, is, as he says, a punishment for rascals.

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 The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionar

An incomparable satirist, Ambrose Bierce became the 'laughing devil' of the San Francisco news media, for he was about as discreet as a runaway locomotive, acco