Can Such Things Be? [24 stories]

Ambrose Bierce’s collection presents twenty-four narratives rooted in the psychological and physical horrors of the American Civil War and the supernatural occurrences of the frontier. The stories focus on men facing impossible circumstances, such as a soldier witnessing his own mother’s death or a man suffocated by an invisible malevolent entity. Bierce utilizes cold, clinical descriptions of battlefield carnage and mysterious disappearances to suggest that the veil between life and death is thin and unforgiving. Entities like the Great Beast at Morgan’s Ferry illustrate his cynical view of nature and human perception.

Readers of classic gothic fiction and military history value this work for its unsentimental treatment of mortality. It serves those who prefer dark, ironic conclusions over traditional supernatural resolutions. The reader walks away with a grim understanding of how trauma and isolation distort the human mind. The text provides a technical look at how atmosphere and concise prose create dread without relying on Victorian sentimentality. It offers a bridge between nineteenth-century ghost stories and modern psychological realism.