An edition of The Devil's Dictionary (1840)

The Devil's Dictionary

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  • 4.2 (10 ratings)
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  • 7 Currently reading
  • 13 Have read

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Last edited by MARC Bot
April 16, 2025 | History
An edition of The Devil's Dictionary (1840)

The Devil's Dictionary

  • 4.2 (10 ratings)
  • 175 Want to read
  • 7 Currently reading
  • 13 Have read

Born in Ohio in 1842, journalist, short-story writer and critic Ambrose Bierce developed into one of this country's most celebrated and cynical wits ? a merciless "American Swift" whose literary barbs were aimed at folly, self-delusion, politics, business, religion, literature and the arts. In this splendid "dictionary" of epigrams, essays, verses and vignettes, you'll find over 1,000 pointed definitions, e.g. Congratulation ("The civility of envy"), Coward ("One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs") and Historian ("A broad-gauge gossip"). Anyone who likes to laugh will love The Devil's Dictionary. Anyone looking for a bon mot to enliven their next speech, paper or conversation will have a field day thumbing through what H. L. Mencken called "some of the most gorgeous witticisms in the English language."

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
139

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Devil’s Dictionary
The Devil’s Dictionary
2021, Standard Ebooks
in English
Cover of: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
2013, Readaclassic.com
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
2007-02-10, LibriVox
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
2005, Axiom Publishing
in English
Cover of: The Devils Dictionary
The Devils Dictionary
2005, Echo Library
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1997-07-01, Project Gutenberg
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1993, Dover Publications, Inc.
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1993, Dover Publications, Inc.
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1967, Hill and Wang
in English
Cover of: The devil's dictionary
The devil's dictionary
1962, Dover Publications
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1911, The World Publishing Co
in English
Cover of: The devil's dictionary
The devil's dictionary
1911, World Pub. Co.
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
xxxx, Dolphin Books
in English

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Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress
PS1097 .D4 1993

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL51691688M
ISBN 10
0486275426
LCCN
92046179
OCLC/WorldCat
27187157

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL7973273W

Source records

Harvard University record

Work Description

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 of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they brought the word "cynic" into disfavor so deep that any book bearing it was discredited in advance of publication."Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country had helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs, and many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had become more or less current in popular speech. This explanation is made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In merely resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed - enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.

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April 16, 2025 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
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