Audiobook5 hours
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories
Written by Ambrose Bierce
Narrated by Jonathan Reese
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Before he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as "bitter Bierce" and "the devil's lexicographer." He left behind a nasty reputation and more than ninety short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius. This volume of selected stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time.
'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' the premier title in this collection, is one of the most widely anthologized American short stories and is considered Bierce's best work. First published in 1891 in Bierce's short story collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, the story centers on Peyton Farquhar, a southern planter who is about to be hanged by the Union Army for attempting to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. As Farquhar stands on the bridge with a noose around his neck, Bierce leads the reader to believe that the rope breaks and that Farquhar falls into the water below, only to escape to his farm, where he is reunited with his wife. 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been lauded as an example of technical brilliance and innovative narration as well as for its examination of such themes as the nature of time and the complexities of human cognition.
'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' the premier title in this collection, is one of the most widely anthologized American short stories and is considered Bierce's best work. First published in 1891 in Bierce's short story collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, the story centers on Peyton Farquhar, a southern planter who is about to be hanged by the Union Army for attempting to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. As Farquhar stands on the bridge with a noose around his neck, Bierce leads the reader to believe that the rope breaks and that Farquhar falls into the water below, only to escape to his farm, where he is reunited with his wife. 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been lauded as an example of technical brilliance and innovative narration as well as for its examination of such themes as the nature of time and the complexities of human cognition.
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Reviews for An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories
Rating: 3.9375 out of 5 stars
4/5
24 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bierce was a fantastic writer. Most of his stories are readily available online and worth finding either there or in a book like this. I love his way with the language and in constructing narratives. This compilation is organized into three categories: nine Civil War stories (six of which are phenomenally good), 10 horror stories and four "tall tales."The Civil War stories are far and away the best of the bunch. The horror stories are gothic in nature and suffer a bit from so clearly being of another time. The tall tales could just as well be lumped in with the so-called horrific except that they display a wicked style of humor that isn't offensive, per se, but are unsettling if taken seriously. My faves were "A Horseman in the Sky," "An Occurrence at Owl Bridge," "Chickamauga," "One of the Missing," "The Damned Thing," "The Moonlit Road," and "My Favorite Murder," the latter of which is really kind of sick and yet somehow made me chuckle. I don't think that speaks all that well of me, but says much for Bierce's inventiveness. The Civil War stories are stellar and worth the price of admission. Of the horror stories, I mostly say "meh."
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The war stories were very good but the others didn't do much for me.