The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter: Classic Tales Edition

· B.J. Harrison · Narrated by B.J. Harrison
Audiobook
2 hr 50 min
Unabridged
Eligible
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About this audiobook

A knot of monks happens upon a gallows in the middle of a dark forest. Hanging from the gallows is a fresh corpse, and underneath the dangling wretch a young woman performs a haunting dance. When Ambrosius falls in love with this outcast woman, his efforts to suppress his natural feelings result in a gradual descent toward calamity and tragedy.

Bierce’s subtle transformation of the monk Ambrosius from innocent monk to violent zealot is masterfully done, ranking this among Bierce’s finest achievements.

About the author

Ambrose Bierce was a brilliant, bitter, and cynical journalist. He is also the author of several collections of ironic epigrams and at least one powerful story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Bierce was born in Ohio, where he had an unhappy childhood. He served in the Union army during the Civil War. Following the war, he moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a columnist for the newspaper the Examiner, for which he wrote a number of satirical sketches. Bierce wrote a number of horror stories, some poetry, and countless essays. He is best known, however, for The Cynic's Word Book (1906), retitled The Devil's Dictionary in 1911, a collection of such cynical definitions as "Marriage: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two." Bierce's own marriage ended in divorce, and his life ended mysteriously. In 1913, he went to Mexico and vanished, presumably killed in the Mexican revolution.

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Narrated by B.J. Harrison