The Devil's Dictionary

by Ambrose Bierce · language: en

THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY by Ambrose Bierce AUTHOR'S PREFACE 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.

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