The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary is a virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, offering some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Ambrose Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth. First published in 1911, Bierce's book offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language which lampoon cant and political doublespeak. It has inspired many imitations both in its day and more recently. Ambrose Bierce was an iconoclastic literary genius and "The Devil's Dictionary," a compilation of his satirical definitions, is a true American classic.