An edition of The Devil's Dictionary (1840)

The unabridged devil's dictionary

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  • 4.2 (9 ratings) ·
  • 130 Want to read
  • 6 Currently reading
  • 10 Have read

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Last edited by Lisa
December 9, 2023 | History
An edition of The Devil's Dictionary (1840)

The unabridged devil's dictionary

  • 4.2 (9 ratings) ·
  • 130 Want to read
  • 6 Currently reading
  • 10 Have read

"A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.".

"All of Bierce's known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi's introduction ranges across the book's writing and publishing history, while their supporting materials focus on individual definitions.

In fact, this is the most extensively annotated edition of a work by Bierce ever published, and the first edition of The Devil's Dictionary to provide detailed bibliographical information on every entry."--BOOK JACKET.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
404

Buy this book

Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Devil’s Dictionary
The Devil’s Dictionary
2021, Standard Ebooks
in English
Cover of: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
2013, Readaclassic.com
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
2007-02-10, LibriVox
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
2005, Axiom Publishing
in English
Cover of: The Devils Dictionary
The Devils Dictionary
2005, Echo Library
in English
Cover of: The unabridged devil's dictionary
The unabridged devil's dictionary
2000, University of Georgia Press
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1997-07-01, Project Gutenberg
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1993, Dover Publications, Inc.
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1993, Dover Publications, Inc.
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1967, Hill and Wang
in English
Cover of: The devil's dictionary
The devil's dictionary
1962, Dover Publications
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
1911, The World Publishing Co
in English
Cover of: The devil's dictionary
The devil's dictionary
1911, World Pub. Co.
in English
Cover of: The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary
xxxx, Dolphin Books
in English

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Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress
PS1097 .D43 2000b

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL37767968M
Internet Archive
unabridgeddevils00bier_675
ISBN 10
0820321966
LCCN
99087396
OCLC/WorldCat
43334150

Source records

marc_columbia MARC record

Work Description

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. Most of these books were merely stupid, though some of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they brought the word "cynic" into disfavor so deep that any book bearing it was discredited in advance of publication."Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country had helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs, and many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had become more or less current in popular speech. This explanation is made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In merely resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed - enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.

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History

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