The Lost Writer

I was browsing around goodreads.com a few days ago when I stumbled upon a list called “Popular 19th Century American Literature.” As I scrolled down the list, I was disappointed to see that Ambrose Bierce wasn’t included. I know this was only one of many lists on goodreads, but it fed my suspicion that Bierce is one of the most underrated writers in American history.

Bierce was better known as a journalist than a fiction writer during his lifetime and journalists tend to fade from our collective cultural memory sooner than great fiction writers. However, I suspect the real reason that Bierce has passed into literary obscurity is because he was born too early.

Bierce was born in July 1842 on a farm in Ohio. In 1861, he joined the Union army and served on the front lines of the Civil War. He was an outstanding soldier by all accounts and courageously rescued a wounded comrade under fire at the Battle of Rich Mountain. Bierce served primarily as a reconnaissance scout and topographical engineer while in the army. In 1863, he suffered a severe head wound at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain and nearly died. He was sent home to recover and was back on active duty three months later. He served until the war ended in April 1865.

Bierce’s war experience had a profound effect on him for the rest of his life. It left him with a lifelong hatred of war. It’s likely that if Bierce were alive today he would be diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, but we can never know for sure.

Settling in San Francisco after the war, Bierce began his career in journalism. He became famous for his satirical columns in William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner.  Bierce’s journalism is a whole other topic which I can only skim over here and deserves its own post. Anyway, it was around this time that he also began to write short stories, with his first one, “The Haunted Valley,” published in 1871. From this start, Bierce went on to write nearly 100 stories primarily in three genres: horror, war and tall tales.

Bierce’s stories were highly original and unlike anything that was written at the time. In an introduction to a collection of his short stories, Cathy N. Davison wrote, “Given the taste of his contemporaries and the dramatic difference between his own work and anything else written in America in the 1880s and 1890s, it is surprising that Bierce was published in the first place.”

Bierce’s horror stories usually show the frailty of humans in the face of unexplainable phenomenon and to a contemporary reader they might seem like episodes of the Twilight Zone with their unexpected twists and eerie atmosphere. A film adaptation of Bierce’s most famous story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” was actually shown as the final episode of the Twilight Zone in 1964.

But it was Bierce’s war stories that really broke new ground. These were graphic, early surrealist and brutal tales. One of his best war stories, “Chickamauga,” gives a reader a good sense of Bierce’s view of war. It tells the story of a little boy who gets lost in a forest and ends up in the middle of hundreds of maimed soldiers, left to die after a recent battle. The story is graphic even by today’s standards and says much about what happens when innocence (the little boy) is confronted by the horrific reality of war.

Bierce was often accused of being a misanthrope and I’m not sure that he ever denied being one. His stories never glorify people nor do they include heroes. His characters are often dominated by the forces around them and seem helpless. Sometimes, as in the case of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” it’s the character’s own actions that undo them. From the stories he left behind, it’s clear that Bierce didn’t see much good in humanity but I’m not sure I’d go as far as to call him a misanthrope.

I think that if Bierce were born later and fought in World War I  instead of the Civil War, his stories would’ve been much more popular. It’s no wonder that many writers of the World War I or “Lost Generation,” considered Bierce to be a great influence (this was especially true of Ernest Hemingway). The post-World War I period brought a more pessimistic attitude toward war and civilization to mainstream thought that was in line with Bierce’s views. People realized that all the “progress” of Western civilization had, for the most part, led to more efficient ways of slaughtering each other.

Bierce’s personal life began to disintegrate in the 1890s when he separated from his wife and both of his sons died. One died of alcoholism and the other was killed in a gun fight over a woman. Only his daughter, Helen, outlived him. He spent his last few years compiling his collected works and visiting his old Civil War battlefields for the last time.

In December 1913, Bierce left the US for Mexico and was never seen again. To this day, no one knows how he died. Some have speculated that he committed suicide, while others have guessed that he was killed by Pancho Villa’s troops somewhere near the city of Chihuahua. His final letters had a suicidal tone to them:

“My plan, so far as I have one is to go through Mexico to one of the Pacific ports, if I can get through without being stood up against a wall and shot as an American. Thence go across the Andes and perhaps across the continent…Naturally it is possible–even probable–that I shall not return.

In his last known letter dated December 26, 1913 from El Paso, Bierce wrote to a friend back in San Francisco:

As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination.

Bierce signed the letter with “So – I bid you farewell,” and was never heard from again. It was a mysterious end–eerily similar to his stories.

Sometimes I wonder if Bierce would be satisfied with his legacy today, would he be angry to omitted from a list of great 19th century American writers?

I’m not sure he would even care. His motto was: “Nothing matters.”