I just bought The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce

He was shelved in the horror section and his name sounded familiar. He is a horror writer right? I also get the feeling I read a story by him about the civil war for an american lit class. I forget which.

Do you know anything about him?

I remember which of his stories I read of his: Chickamauga and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

He was noted for both his horror stories and his Civil War stories. And The Devil's Dictionary, which is his most famous work. A dictionary that gives sarcastic meanings to words. For example:

Conservative (n.) A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

I have Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce and Terror by Night, but haven't read either yet.

Bierce shows up in a lot of places...

He did write some horror, some good, some pedestrian; some of Bierce's references made their way into Lovecraft's writings.

You might want to look up Robert W. Chambers as well.

Algernon Blackwood seems to be another victorian horror writer as well.

Lol, most people only know of e.a. Poe as a victorian horror wrter.

What is robert w. Chambers writing like?

Robert W. Chambers wrote one famous book of short stories, The King in Yellow and lots of other unmemorable stuff.

From what I've heard, the first four stories in The King in Yellow (The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, In the Court of the Dragon and The Yellow Sign) are the only ones worth reading, but they are quite good. The four stories all feature an imaginary play called The King in Yellow which is supposed to contain secrets that will drive any reader mad.

It was an inspriation (maybe THE inspiration?) for H. P. Lovecraft and his creation: The Necronomicon.

Maybe I'll read The King in Yellow once I finish Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

And Algernon Blackwood is supposed to be very good. Look into The Willows or The Windigo some time.

Man, I need to read these books!

I've read Chambers in the Chaosium Yellow Sign and Other Stories collection, which is probably the best way for horror readers to approach him. Joshi's editorial work is predictably impeccable. The stories are quite surreal, and don't really resemble any trope-ridden horror formula, despite their contributions to what's now considered the Cthulhu Mythos. I like 'em.

All these reccomendations are awesome!! Thank you guys. :)

Algernon Blackwood is a key part of any core horror reading list. Both "The Willows" and "The Wendigo" would be in comfortably in the top 50 if we could poll readers of traditional horror and ghost stories. He had a mystical relationship with nature which shows up in many of his stories, such as "The Man Whom the Trees Loved'. Don't get the idea that these are stories about frolicing with the cute little animals. Creatures and landscapes are imbued with something like souls for Blackwood, but not necessarily friendly or sympathetic ones. (FYI Blackwood was not strictly Victorian, though, and lived through half of the 20th century.)

If you dig Blackwood, Arthur Machen shared some themes and sentiments, and also wrote a bunch of all-time classics.

Ambrose Bierce I recommend as someone who was able to weave an incredibly bleak sense of humour into his horror and civil war stories. I also agree with what's been said about Algernon Blackwood and Robert W. Chambers. The S.T. Joshi volume is the best one to go for with Chambers, by far.

We just read a Bierce story for our reading group over at The Weird Tradition (http://www.librarything.com/topic/129907). I thought it was quite good.

>9 rtttt01:

I'll second your recommendation of Arthur Machen's work and go on to say that his work is something that not just horror fans but anyone who is interested in the general development of English-language literature should find fascinating; he's is the single most underappreciated author of his generation, IMHO.