Tales of Soldiers and Civilians was published by E.L.G. Steele in San Francisco in 1891 in a small edition, probably fewer than 500 copies. The collection brought together stories that Bierce had published in various San Francisco newspapers and magazines, particularly the Examiner and the Wasp, and it established him as America’s most technically accomplished short-story writer since Poe.
The “Soldiers” section contains the Civil War stories that Bierce drew from his own service: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “Chickamauga,” “A Horseman in the Sky,” “One of the Missing,” and others. Each story takes a single incident — a hanging, a battle, a reconnaissance — and renders it with a compression and ironic detachment that makes conventional war fiction seem sentimental. Bierce served as a topographical engineer in the Union Army, fighting in some of the war’s bloodiest engagements (Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, the Atlanta campaign), and his stories reflect not the glory or tragedy of war but its essential absurdity: men die for reasons they do not understand, in places they cannot identify, and the survivors are not ennobled but damaged.
The “Civilians” section contains stories of psychological horror and suspense that anticipate the modern psychological thriller. These stories share the war stories’ formal characteristics — brevity, precision, ironic reversal — but their settings are domestic rather than military, and their terrors are psychological rather than physical.
Collecting Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
First edition (E.L.G. Steele, San Francisco, 1891): Dark blue-green cloth, gilt lettering.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $2,000–$5,000
- Very good: $800–$2,000
- Good: $300–$800
This is one of the most significant American short-story collections of the 19th century. The small San Francisco print run makes first editions genuinely scarce. Many surviving copies show significant wear, as the original binding was not robust.