The ways of ghosts

Seen by contemporaries as a natural successor to Edgar Allan Poe but with the added dimensions of a man who had witnessed true horror fighting in some of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War, Ambrose Bierce was one of America’s leading convention-defying writers, critics and essayists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries – but still remains relatively unknown by many fans of the genre. This collection not only brings together some of Bierce’s best and most unusual stories but also highlights those aspects of his life which saw him as a loner, someone who stepped aside from society and observed it as some other being.