![]() They are the ghosts of a murdered potential: the potential to do life well – properly, as it should be. His stories are loaded with spooks of this sort. His stories – especially those which we can classify as horror or fantasy – illustrate a world which fails to live up to its promises. As he wrote in “The Devil’s Dictionary,” a ghost is the outward sign of an inward fear – a visual signifier of a spiritual sickness. He was a mystical materialist, a cynical idealist, and a compassionate curmudgeon. In death, as in life, Bierce is defined by contradictions. ![]() There was never a better author to read around the snapping flare of a lonely campsite than the rustic, existential horror stories of Ambrose Bierce. And what better stories for any campfire’s company: he wrote twilight tales of seductive werewolves, zombie resurrections, nights spent with corpses in empty houses, haunted cabins, killer robots, wartime ghost stories, invisible predators, reincarnated spirits, family curses, ghoul-haunted graveyards, jilted ghosts’ violent revenges, mysterious disappearances, spectral visions, guilt-maddened murderers, and battlefield carnage. His dark, literary universe was haunted by shadowy monsters who never quite revealed themselves, only stalking in the dim background like woodland predators around a campfire. ![]() Lovecraft, penning some of the most shocking, savage horror stories in the English language. ![]() He was the successor of Edgar Allan Poe and a harbinger of H. ![]()
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