� His dark vision of life centers on warfare and the cruel joke it plays on humanity
� He was the tenth of thirteen children
� The Bierce family lived in a log cabin in Megis County, Ohio
� He was educated by exploring his fathers small library
� When Bierce was 19 years old he volunteered and fought in the Civil War
� Left the army and joined his brother working in the United States Mint in San Francisco
� He began to contribute witty short pieces to the city's weeklies
� He began to get a reputation as a muckraking reporter
� Bierce eventually got to be the editor of the San Francisco New Letter
� Bierce earned the name "Bitter Bierce" for not taking money to keep silence about a tax fraud case
� Bierce married in 1871 and moved to England
� He returned to San Francisco in 1876
� In 1906 The Cynic's World Book was published, Bierce offered a collection of definitions with irony and sardonic humor
� In 1913 Bierce went to Mexico to report on the revolution
� Nothing else was ever heard from Ambrose Bierce again
