Cover of the Penguin Classics edition – the edition I own (fair use)
(1) AMBROSE BIERCE –
THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY (1906)
“OVERWORK, n.
A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.”
As I like to quip, I am the son of the Devil’s Dictionary and TV Tropes.
And as TV Tropes said of The Devil’s Dictionary – “Bierce had nothing but contempt for the mores and customs of his fellow man, and his book is full of ungentle deconstruction of what people secretly mean when they speak…In a nutshell, The Devil’s Dictionary is a dictionary that claims to present the “true” definitions of words, or rather the concepts said words supposedly represent, free of the superficial and hypocritical connotations they’ve gained throughout their years in the zeitgeist. As expected of Bitter Bierce, the vast majority of these paint even universally benevolent concepts (like “friendship”) in a very grim light, often accompanied by poems or rhymes written by Bierce under a series of bizarre and cryptic aliases. Bierce had fierce hatred for mediocrity, common morality and religion, and his frequent jabs caused a great deal of controversy”.
But seriously, The Devil’s Dictionary is one of those select few books that have etched themselves deep in my psyche – not just for its own content but for all the satirical lexicography that has followed in its footsteps.
The premise is simple enough – a satirical dictionary or lexicon in which words are defined mocking or poking fun at the social concepts or pretensions behind them. The humor is dry and some of it is unsurprisingly dated, although it is surprising how much of it remains topical, which I guess says something about human nature as enduring.
The Devil Dictionary was compiled, originally under the more accurate but less colorful title of The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906, from the instalments of it – presumably “defining” a few words at a time – published over three decades in magazines and newspapers.
I’m not the only one to have an opinion of it as god-tier – “Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig said in an interview that The Devil’s Dictionary is probably the most brilliant work of satire written in America…maybe one of the greatest in all of world literature”.
H.L. Mencken praised it in his characteristic style mocking the United States – “There you will find the most brilliant stuff, first and last, that America has ever produced… the true masterpiece of the one genuine wit that These States have ever seen.”
As well he might given that he was one of its imitators with his own humorous lexicography, as was my favorite anarchist, Bob Black.
I also have to shout out Ambrose Bierce for his famous short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek – as well as his mysterious disappearance, “one of the most famous disappearances in American literary history”, while accompanying Pancho Villa’s army during the Mexican Revolution.
