The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce [the alpha prince and his bride full story free txt] 📗

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#3 in our series by Ambrose Bierce [From Wiretap]

 

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THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY

 

by Ambrose Bierce

 

July, 1997 [Etext #972]

[Date last updated: January 6, 2006]

 

The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Devil’s Dictionary by Bierce

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The Internet Wiretap 1st Online Edition of

 

THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY

by

AMBROSE BIERCE

Entered by Aloysius of &tSftDotIotE

aloysius@west.darkside.com

 

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

 

The Devil’s Dictionary was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was

continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that

year a large part of it was published in covers with the title _The

Cynic’s Word Book_, a name which the author had not the power to

reject or happiness to approve. To quote the publishers of the

present work:

 

“This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by

the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the

work had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out

in covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a

score of ‘cynic’ books — The Cynic’s This, The Cynic’s That, and

The Cynic’s t’Other. Most of these books were merely stupid, though

some