The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce is a satirical dictionary that contains witty and ironic definitions of common English words.  Published in 1906, it was originally titled The Cynic’s Word Book. The book evolved over thirty years and was inspired in part by Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, which Bierce thought had comic opportunities. It had its origins in a submission Bierce made in 1875 to the San Francisco News Letter which contained comic definitions of 48 words, which were, ironically, left out of the original book. He continued the practice in columns for The Argonaut in 1877-78 and then contributed 88 installments of 15-20 words to The Wasp during 1881-86, using “The Devil’s Dictionary” as its title. The series continued only sporadically during his term as editor of the San Francisco Examiner from 1887-1906. The initial edition published in 1906 by Double, Page and Company contained 500 words (A-L).  A second edition appeared as “The Devil’s Dictionary” in Volume 7 of his collected works and contained an additional 500 words (M-Z). This is the version used in these recordings.  An expanded edition was released in 1967 that contained an additional 851 words that were thought lost after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed the archives of most publications.

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