Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (Annotated)

Cobwebs from an Empty Skull is Ambrose Bierce's mordant collection of brief fables, parables, epigrams, and grotesque moral tales, first published in the 1870s under the shadow of nineteenth-century didactic literature. Borrowing the compact forms of Aesop and La Fontaine, Bierce empties them of comforting instruction and replaces conventional wisdom with irony, cruelty, and logical ambush. Its st...