The second book from Ambrose Bierce is a broad collection of cynical wit, anecdote and story-telling. First published under the pseudonym Dod Grile in 1873, Ambrose Bierce was already a successful and well-known writer as a journalist for the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser. He went on to write his most famous works "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) and "The Devil's Dictionary" (1906), before vanishing mysteriously in Mexico in 1913.