{"product_id":"can-such-things-be-ambrose-bierce-9791043133855","title":"Can Such Things Be?","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAmbrose Bierce\u003c\/strong\u003e's second major short story collection, \u003cstrong\u003eCan Such Things\u003c\/strong\u003e Be? collected nearly all of Bierce's supernatural horror stories.Bierce himself was a skeptic of the supernatural, having once written a satirical essay \"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Clothing\u003c\/strong\u003e of Ghosts,\" in which he insisted that \"The materialized spook appealing to our senses for recognition of his ghostly character must authenticate himself otherwise than by familiar and remembered habiliments. He must be credentialed by nudity-and that regardless of temperature or who may happen to be present.\"Despite his personal skepticism, Bierce was able to capture the essence of the supernatural horror story. \"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Moonlit\u003c\/strong\u003e Road\" is a strong example, providing three distinct vantage points of the same events, and both \"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Death\u003c\/strong\u003e of Halpin Frayser\" and \"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Damned\u003c\/strong\u003e Thing\" are frequently anthologized as pioneers in the genre. Not all stories in the collection are strictly \"ghost stories\"-\"Moxon's \u003cstrong\u003eMaster\u003c\/strong\u003e\" is one of the first examples in English literature to describe a robotic thinking machine (and the fate of its master), and \"Haïta the Shepherd\" is a tale of a young man's search for meaning in his life. Bierce also plays with the idea of holes in reality in the various \"Mysterious Disappearances\" stories, portals to horrifying locations in \"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Spook\u003c\/strong\u003e House,\" and parallel dimensions or altered states in \"A Psychological Shipwreck\" and \"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Realm\u003c\/strong\u003e of the Unreal.\"\u003cstrong\u003eH\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003cstrong\u003eP. Lovecraft\u003c\/strong\u003e discusses Bierce in his essay \"\u003cstrong\u003eSupernatural Horror\u003c\/strong\u003e in Literature,\" quoting \u003cstrong\u003eSamuel Loveman\u003c\/strong\u003e: \"In Bierce, the evocation of horror becomes for the first time, not so much the prescription or perversion of Poe and Maupassant, but an atmosphere definite and uncannily precise. Words, so simple that one would be prone to ascribe them to the limitations of a literary hack, take on an unholy horror, a new and unguessed transformation.\"Like his other major published collection of short stories, Bierce updated and modified his stories for each new edition. This collection includes all stories as revised and published in his \u003cstrong\u003e1910\u003c\/strong\u003e Collected Works, Volume III: \u003cstrong\u003eCan Such Things\u003c\/strong\u003e Be?, as well as several stories from the \"Bodies of the Dead\" section in an earlier \u003cstrong\u003e1903\u003c\/strong\u003e edition, which were not included in his Collected Works.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ambrose Bierce\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9791043133855\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Les Prairies Numeriques\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/28\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 312\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.92lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d","brand":"Ambrose Bierce","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48437694103807,"sku":"9791043133855","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_220e98e7-c060-4431-8407-b5a1cfc1d6d0.jpg?v=1777163454","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/can-such-things-be-ambrose-bierce-9791043133855","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}