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The Land Beyond the Blow by Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
The Land Beyond the Blow by Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
The Land Beyond the Blow by Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
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The Land Beyond the Blow by Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

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This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Land Beyond the Blow’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Bierce includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘The Land Beyond the Blow’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Bierce’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles
LanguageEnglish
PublisherPublishdrive
Release dateJul 17, 2017
ISBN9781786564276
The Land Beyond the Blow by Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
Author

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce was an American writer, critic and war veteran. Bierce fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War, eventually rising to the rank of brevet major before resigning from the Army following an 1866 expedition across the Great Plains. Bierce’s harrowing experiences during the Civil War, particularly those at the Battle of Shiloh, shaped a writing career that included editorials, novels, short stories and poetry. Among his most famous works are “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “The Boarded Window,” “Chickamauga,” and What I Saw of Shiloh. While on a tour of Civil-War battlefields in 1913, Bierce is believed to have joined Pancho Villa’s army before disappearing in the chaos of the Mexican Revolution.

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    The Land Beyond the Blow by Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated) - Ambrose Bierce

    The Complete Works of

    AMBROSE BIERCE

    VOLUME 3 OF 35

    The Land Beyond the Blow

    Parts Edition

    By Delphi Classics, 2013

    Version 1

    COPYRIGHT

    ‘The Land Beyond the Blow’

    Ambrose Bierce: Parts Edition (in 35 parts)

    First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

    © Delphi Classics, 2017.

    All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

    ISBN: 978 1 78656 427 6

    Delphi Classics

    is an imprint of

    Delphi Publishing Ltd

    Hastings, East Sussex

    United Kingdom

    Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

    www.delphiclassics.com

    Ambrose Bierce: Parts Edition

    This eBook is Part 3 of the Delphi Classics edition of Ambrose Bierce in 35 Parts. It features the unabridged text of The Land Beyond the Blow from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Ambrose Bierce, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

    Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Ambrose Bierce or the Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce in a single eBook.

    Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

    AMBROSE BIERCE

    IN 35 VOLUMES

    Parts Edition Contents

    The Novellas

    1, The Dance of Death

    2, The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter

    3, The Land Beyond the Blow

    The Short Story Collections

    4, The Fiend’s Delight

    5, Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

    6, Present at a Hanging, and Other Ghost Stories

    7, In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

    8, Can Such Things Be?

    9, Fantastic Fables

    10, Negligible Tales

    11, The Parenticide Club

    12, The Fourth Estate

    13, The Ocean Wave

    14, Kings of Beasts

    15, Two Administrations

    16, Miscellaneous Tales

    The Poetry Collections

    17, Black Beetles in Amber

    18, Shapes of Clay

    19, Fables in Rhyme

    20, Some Ante-Mortem Epitaphs

    21, The Scrap Heap

    The Non-Fiction

    22, The Shadow on the Dial, and Other Essays

    23, The Devil’s Dictionary

    24, Write It Right

    25, Ashes of the Beacon

    26, On with the Dance!: A Review

    27, A Cynic Looks at Life

    28, Tangential Views

    29, Bits of Autobiography

    30, Miscellaneous Articles and Reviews

    31, Uncollected Essays

    The Letters

    32, The Letters of Ambrose Bierce

    The Criticism

    33, The Criticism

    Biercian Texts

    34, Biercian Articles and Reviews

    The Biography

    35, Ambrose Bierce: A Biography by Carey Mcwilliams

    www.delphiclassics.com

    The Land Beyond the Blow

    CONTENTS

    Thither

    Sons of the Fair Star

    An Interview with Gnarmag-Zote

    The Tamtonians

    Marooned on Ug

    The Dog in Ganegwag

    A Conflagration in Ghargaroo

    An Execution in Batrugia

    The Jumjum of Gokeetle-Guk

    The Kingdom of Tortirra

    Hither

    Thither

    A crowd of men were assisting at a dog-fight. The scene was one of indescribable confusion. In the center of the tumult the dogs, obscure in a cloud of dust, rolled over and over, howling, yarring, tearing each other with sickening ferocity. About them the hardly less ferocious men shouted, cursed and struck, encouraged the animals with sibilant utterances and threatened with awful forms of death and perdition all who tried to put an end to the combat. Caught in the thick of this pitiless mob I endeavored to make my way to a place of peace, when a burly blackguard, needlessly obstructing me, said derisively:

    I guess you are working pockets.

    You are a liar! I retorted hotly.

    That is all the provocation that I remember to have given.

    Sons of the Fair Star

    When consciousness returned the sun was high in the heavens, yet the light was dim, and had that indefinable ghastly quality that is observed during a partial eclipse. The sun itself appeared singularly small, as if it were at an immensely greater distance than usual. Rising with some difficulty to my feet, I looked about me. I was in an open space among some trees growing on the slope of a mountain range whose summit on the one hand was obscured by a mist of a strange pinkish hue, and on the other rose into peaks glittering with snow. Skirting the base at a distance of two or three miles flowed a wide river, and beyond it a nearly level plain stretched away to the horizon, dotted with villages and farmhouses and apparently in a high state of cultivation. All was unfamiliar in its every aspect. The trees were unlike any that I had ever seen or even imagined, the trunks being mostly square and the foliage consisting of slender filaments resembling hair, in many instances long enough to reach the earth. It was of many colors, and I could not perceive that there was any prevailing one, as green is in the vegetation to which I was accustomed. As far as I could see there were no grass, no weeds, no flowers; the earth was covered with a kind of lichen, uniformly blue. Instead of rocks, great masses of metals protruded here and there, and above me on the mountain were high cliffs of what seemed to be bronze veined with brass. No animals were visible, but a few birds as uncommon in appearance as their surroundings glided through the air or perched upon the rocks. I say glided, for their motion was not true flight, their wings being mere membranes extended parallel to their sides, and having no movement independent of the body. The bird was, so to say, suspended between them and moved forward by quick strokes of a pair of enormously large webbed feet, precisely as a duck propels itself in water. All these things excited in me no surprise, nor even curiosity; they were merely unfamiliar. That which most interested me was what appeared to be a bridge several miles away, up the river, and to this I directed my steps, crossing over from the barren and desolate hills to the populous plain.

    For a full history of my life and adventures in Mogon–Zwair, and a detailed description of the country, its people, their manners and customs, I must ask the reader to await the publication of a book, now in the press, entitled A Blackened Eye; in this brief account I can give only a few of such particulars as seem

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