The Literature Network - Can Such Things Be?

Can Such Things Be?

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From: The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature
Date: 19860101
Author:James D. Hart

Can Such Things Be?, 24 stories by Ambrose Bierce , published in 1893. Mainly concerned with episodes of the Civil War and the California frontier, they are marked by a psychological realism, sardonic humor, and clever use of surprise endings and effects of supernatural horror, exhibited in such titles as “The Realm of the Unreal,” “Some Haunted Houses,” “Bodies of the Dead,” and “Mysterious Disappearances.”

“My Favorite Murder” is a perversely humorous narrative which concludes: “Altogether, I cannot help ...

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