An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Written by Ambrose Bierce

Narrated by John Van Stan

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce. It is one of the best classic tales filled with detail and vision.

This story inspires the imagination, then provides one of the best twists ever invented. The story is set in the time of the Civil War. It is famous for its irregular time sequence and twisted end.

Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is considered an early example of experimentation with stream of consciousness. It is one of Bierce's most anthologized stories.

An Author's Republic audio production.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author's Republic Audio
• Release date: Apr 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781518947001

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was an American novelist and short story writer. Born in Meigs County, Ohio, Bierce was raised Indiana in a poor family who treasured literature and extolled the value of education. Despite this, he left school at 15 to work as a printer’s apprentice, otherwise known as a “devil”, for the Northern Indianan, an abolitionist newspaper. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he enlisted in the Union infantry and was present at some of the conflict’s most harrowing events, including the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. During the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, Bierce—by then a lieutenant—suffered a serious brain injury and was discharged the following year. After a brief re-enlistment, he resigned from the Army and settled in San Francisco, where he worked for years as a newspaper editor and crime reporter. In addition to his career in journalism, Bierce wrote a series of realist stories including “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Chickamauga,” which depict the brutalities of warfare while emphasizing the psychological implications of violence. In 1906, he published The Devil’s Dictionary, a satirical dictionary compiled from numerous installments written over several decades for newspapers and magazines. In 1913, he accompanied Pancho Villa’s army as an observer of the Mexican Revolution and disappeared without a trace at the age of 71.

Reviews for An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

[DAvid · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An unexpected end to a well-written story. I liked the narrator they used for this. He even supplied proper inflection as he read the tale.