Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?) and George Sterling (1869–1926) were two of the most distinctive figures of their respective eras. Bierce, after serving in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, had established himself as a towering and feared journalist who skewered politicians, poetasters, clerics, and others who earned his wrath. Sterling became a sort of poet laureate of California with exquisitely crafted poems ranging from the cosmic to the human.
The two writers had gotten in touch in the 1890s, and over the next decade and a half they engaged in an intense and illuminating exchange of letters. In this first publication of their unabridged correspondence, we learn how Bierce was impressed with the cosmicism of Sterling’s “star poem,” The Testimony of the Suns, and spent years attempting to secure the publication of the horror poem “A Wine of Wizardry.” When it finally appeared in Cosmopolitan in 1907, a furor broke out, as Bierce’s opponents chastised him for his praise of the poem. Bierce in turn lambasted his critics with his customary satirical flair.
The relationship, however, gradually broke down, as Bierce expressed disapproval of Sterling’s philandering and his young friend’s increasing political radicalism, embodied in his friendship with the socialist Jack London. Bierce severed relations with Sterling in late 1912, a year before he disappeared into Mexico, never to be heard from again.
The letters have been exhaustively annotated by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, two leading authorities on Bierce and Sterling.
