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COSIMO CLASSICS The Devil by Ambrose Bierce
American satirist AMBROSE GWINNETT BIERCE (1842c. 1914) began his satirical redefinitions of ordinary words in a weekly newspaper in 1881 and saw them first collected in *The Cynics Word Book* in 1906. But it was with the 1911 republication as *The Devils Dictionary* that he struck comedy gold for the ages with his pointedly mocking and ironic riffs on politics business religion the arts and American culture at large. From *abasement* (a decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power; peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer) to *zoology* (the science and history of the animal kingdom including its king the House Fly) *The Devils Dictionary* remains as witty today as it was a century ago.show more