Columnist, short story author, and poet Ambrose Bierce is remembered for his veracity and his acrimonious prose style. Bierce has evidently won the superlative for causing the most havoc when it came to his writing. The bad-tempered bravado of his gazette writing and his former appalling naturalistic war fiction led to him obtaining the appellations “Bitter Bierce” and “The Devil’s Topographer.” Antagonistic derision seemed to flow through Bierce’s writing, from his raging literary smites in his weekly editorials for the San Francisco Chronicle to his cynical veracious connotations in The Devil’s Dictionary, the cringing barbarity in his Civil War stories, his ghost stories, and science fiction parables. Although Bierce wrote impeccable American prose, his bluntness passed off as cynicism did not sit well with the American people. Despite Bierce’s loathed personality and flawed nature, he is still known to be one of the greatest prose writers to ever have lived. The public, publicly despised and repelled Bierce, but they secretly loved him and his veracity, thus being the reason as to why the people could openly appreciate his works after his death.
