{"id":25175,"date":"2014-08-01T12:04:29","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T16:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=25175"},"modified":"2014-08-01T12:04:29","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T16:04:29","slug":"bitter-bierce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2014\/08\/bitter-bierce\/","title":{"rendered":"“Bitter Bierce”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: \u00a0Michael Tipton, Archives & Rare Books Library intern<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Ambrose<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Shortly after the conclusion of World War II in 1945, a Mr. Myles Walsh of Oradell, New Jersey traveled to Cincinnati for the purpose of visiting his daughter, who at the time worked in the city.\u00a0 While on an extended stay, Mr. Walsh decided to take some coursework in the Classics Department at the University of Cincinnati.\u00a0 So impressed was Mr. Walsh with the courses and the campus of the university that he decided to donate to UC some very rare and unique letters personally written and addressed to him from noted American author and journalist Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?).<\/p>\n

Though they were consulted once or twice by scholars over the past half-century, the fifty-nine donated letters have never been generally accessible for research and teaching.\u00a0 In 2011, the letters were digitized and now, with the development of a Bierce presence on ARB\u2019s website, they have assumed their rightful place on the internet for all to study and enjoy.<\/p>\n

\"Ambrose<\/a>For my culminating experience practicum for a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree from Kent State University, I undertook the task of researching, transcribing, and creating a webpage for the fifty-nine letters handwritten by Ambrose Bierce between 1895 and 1911 to the brother and sister duo of Myles and Elizabeth (Lily) Walsh.\u00a0 Like most of the individuals that inquired about the project I was working on for my practicum, I too (at first) did not have much of an idea about who exactly Ambrose Bierce was.\u00a0 In fact, beyond a vague notion of the satirical definitions he penned in his work The Devil\u2019s Dictionary<\/em> (1911), I was clueless.\u00a0 However, through conducting research on Bierce and through numerous readings (and re-readings) of the letters in the collection, I was able to gather a better understanding about Ambrose Bierce the writer and, more importantly, the man.<\/p>\n

While the letters discuss already known and documented matters of Bierce\u2019s professional career as a journalist and writer, what is unique about the letters is that throughout the correspondence a range of emotions\u2014from amusement<\/a> to fear<\/a> to downright sadness<\/a>\u2014are expressed by Bierce which aid in chipping away at the icy fa\u00e7ade to reveal and humanize a man much more caring and less reserved than his public persona would lead one to believe, a more complex man than his nickname of \u201cBitter Bierce\u201d would indicate.\u00a0 For example, his concern for Elizabeth (Lily) Walsh in her final days and his advice for and encouragement of Myles Walsh throughout the correspondence is of a father-like quality (even while the relationship with his own children was nearly non-existent) which discloses Bierce as he truly was.<\/p>\n

\"Ambrose<\/a>I encourage you to take a look through The Ambrose Bierce Letters Project<\/a>.\u00a0 It includes a biographical sketch of Bierce, scans of the letters, the transcripts, links to other institutions that hold Bierce material, and a bibliography of Bierce\u2019s works as well as that of Bierce scholars.<\/p>\n

It is has been my hope for this project that it serves to entertain as well as educate all who use it to learn more about a great American satirist and author.<\/p>\n

For more information on the holdings of the Archives & Rare Books Library, please contact us at 513-556-1959, archives@ucmail.uc.edu<\/a>, or visit us on the web at http:\/\/www.libraries.uc.edu\/arb.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: \u00a0Michael Tipton, Archives & Rare Books Library intern \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Shortly after the conclusion of World War II in 1945, a Mr. Myles Walsh of Oradell, New Jersey traveled to Cincinnati for the purpose of visiting his daughter, who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[634,19,54,67],"class_list":["post-25175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-ambrose-bierce","tag-exhibits","tag-featured-resource","tag-rare-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}