Abstract

Tale and Sketch

This article critically appraises several books. Some of them are "In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians," by Ambrose Bierce, "The Land Where the Sunsets Go: Sketches of the American Desert," by Orville H. Leonard, "From Their Galleries," by A. Donald Douglas, and others. This collection of tales was first printed in 1891, with the following preface by the author: "Denied existence by the chief publishing houses of the country, this book owes itself to E.L.G. Steele, merchant, of San Francisco. In attesting Steele's faith in his judgment and his friend, it will serve its author's main and best ambition." More than half these stories come straight from Bierce's experience as an officer in. the Civil War. Like the others, they deal pretty monotonously with blood and terror and death. No doubt the chief publishing houses of the early nineties dismissed the book as "morbid." Taken as a whole, it is morbid, and rather tiresome as well-a supper of horrors too long drawn out.