In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
About this audiobook
In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians is a collection of twenty-six short stories originally published in 1909 detailing the lives of soldiers and civilians during the American Civil War. Ambrose Bierce’s stories about Civil War soldiers include
“A Horseman in the Sky,”“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,”“Chickamauga,”“A Son of the Gods,”“One of the Missing,”“Killed at Resaca,”“The Affair at Coulter’s Notch,”“The Coup de Grâce,”“Parker Adderson, Philosopher,”“An Affair of Outposts,”“The Story of a Conscience,”“One Kind of Officer,”“One Officer, One Man,”“George Thurston,” and“The Mocking-Bird.”Bierce’s stories about the lives of civilians during the Civil War period include
“The Man Out of the Nose,”“An Adventure at Brownville,”“The Famous Gilson Bequest,”“The Applicant,”“A Watcher by the Dead,”“The Man and the Snake,”“A Holy Terror,”“The Suitable Surroundings,”“The Boarded Window,”“A Lady from Red Horse,” and“The Eyes of the Panther.”About the author
Ambrose Bierce was born on June 24, 1842, in Meigs County, Ohio, son of Marcus Aurelius and Laura Sherwood Bierce, and the youngest of a large brood of children. He left his family in 1857 to live in Indiana, working for an abolitionist newspaper. He eventually came to live with his uncle Lucius Verus in Ohio, then attended the Kentucky Military Institute for a year before dropping out. Bierce worked odd jobs until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860, when he enlisted with the Ninth Indiana volunteers. Bierce worked primarily as a topographical engineer, where his excellent and valiant performance allowed him to rise through the ranks. What he saw and experienced in the war had the most profound effect on Bierce. His wartime experiences are commonly seen as the source of his cynical realism. Bierce moved to San Francisco in 1867, where he got a job working at the mint. It was then he decided on a career in journalism. Self-taught, he got a regular job as the "Town Crier" in the San Francisco News Letter at the end of the following year. Bierce's acid wit quickly gained him great local fame and a burgeoning national notoriety. In 1871, he courted and wed Mary Ellen Day, a San Franciscan socialite of one of the best families of the city. A wedding gift took them to England, where Bierce would spend one of the happiest periods of his life. During his time there, Mollie gave birth to his first two children, and he wrote his first three books: Nuggets and Dust, The Fiend's Delight, and Cobwebs from an Empty Skull. In early 1875, Mollie returned to San Francisco with their young family. Bierce reluctantly followed later that year, just before the birth of the couple's third child. In 1877, Bierce became the editor of The Argonaut, gaining notoriety for his "Prattle" column. After a brief period, Bierce returned to San Francisco and joined the Wasp in 1881, where he picked up his "Prattle" column. In 1887, Bierce began his famous (and tumultuous) relationship with publishing baron William Randolph Hearst, joining the staff of the San Francisco Examiner. While continuing his newspaper work, Bierce began producing books in America. Between 1891 and 1893, Bierce wrote and published The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, Black Beetles in Amber, and Can Such Things Be? Bierce published Fantastic Fables in 1899 and Shapes of Clay in 1903. After Mollie's death in 1905, Bierce began working for Hearst's Cosmopolitan, and Bierce's Cynic's Work Book (later the Devil's Dictionary) was published in 1906. Bierce became less and less involved in the world around him. When Walter Neal approached Bierce to compile his Collected Works in 1909, Bierce resigned to Hearst for the last time. That year, he also published The Shadow on the Dial and Write It Right, all while working on the Collected Works. The last volumes of the twelve-volume Collected Works set appeared in 1912. In December 1913, Bierce crossed the border into revolutionary Mexico, possibly to meet up with rebel leader Pancho Villa, and was never heard from again. His death is generally agreed to have occurred in 1914.
Claire Bloom gained international fame in 1951 with her screen debut in Charles Chaplin???s motion picture Limelight. Among her many memorable films are Richard III, The Haunting, Look Back in Anger, and A Doll???s House.
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.
Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angier’s Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones Award. She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.
Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won several Audie Awards and been named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices. Stefan’s early singing career included choral and solo concerts at Carnegie Hall, Judson Hall, and Lincoln Center.
