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"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. Described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature", it was originally published by The San Francisco Examiner on July 13, 1890, and was first collected in Bierce's book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891). The story, which is set during the American Civil War, is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode.

The condemned man stands on a bridge, his hands bound behind his back. A noose is tied around his neck. In a moment he will meet his fate: DEATH BY HANGING. There is no escape. Or is there? Find out in... An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

This short story originally appeared in The San Francisco Examiner, July 13, 1890. It has been anthologized numerous times, and can also be found in several collections, including The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (1970) and Terror By Night: Classic Ghost and Horror Stories (2011).

It was the basis for the 1962 French short film La Rivière du hibou, later screened in 1964 as episode 142 of The Twilight Zone.

Of all the writers of ghost and horror stories, Ambrose Bierce is perhaps the most colourful. He was a dark, cynical and pessimistic soul who had a grim vision of fate and the unfairness of life, which he channelled into his fiction. And in his death, or rather his disappearance, he created a mystery as strange and unresolved as any that he penned himself. But more of that later.

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce was born in a log cabin on 21st June 1842, in Horse Creek, Meigs County, Ohio, USA. He was the tenth of thirteen children, ten of whom survived infancy. His father, an unsuccessful farmer with an unseemly love of literature, had given all the Bierce children names beginning with 'A'. There was Abigail, the eldest; then Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius etc. So oddness was a part of Bierce's life from the beginning. Poverty and religion of the extreme variety were the two chief influences on young Ambrose's childhood. He not only hated this period of his life, he also developed a deep hatred for his family and this is reflected in some of his stories which depict families preying on and murdering one another. For example the unforgettable opening sentence of 'An Imperfect Conflagration' seems to sum up his bitter attitude: 'Early in 1872 I murdered my father - an act that made a deep impression on me at the time'.

Table of Contents

• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - (1890)
• The Moonlit Road - (1907)
• Haïta the Shepherd - (1891)
• The Secret of Macarger's Gulch - (1891)
• The Eyes of the Panther - (1897)
• The Stranger - (1909)
• An Inhabitant of Carcosa - (1886)
• The Applicant - (1892)
• The Death of Halpin Frayser - (1891)
• A Watcher by the Dead - (1889)
• An Imperfect Conflagration - (1886)
• The Man and the Snake - (1890)
• John Mortonson's Funeral - (1906)
• Moxon's Master - (1899)
• The Damned Thing - (1893)
• The Realm of the Unreal - (1890)
• Chickamauga - (1889)
• A Fruitless Assignment - (1888)
• A Vine on a House - (1905)
• One of Twins - (1888)
• Present at a Hanging - (1888)
• A Wireless Message - (1905)
• One of the Missing - (1888)
• An Arrest - (1905)
• A Jug of Sirup - (1893)
• The Isle of Pines - (1888)
• At Old Man Eckert's - (1901)
• Three and One Are One - (1908)
• The Spook House - (1889)
• The Middle Toe of the Right Foot - (1890)
• The Thing at Nolan - (1891)
• The Difficulty of Crossing a Field - (1888)
• The Affair at Coulter's Notch - (1889)
• An Unfinished Race - (1888)
• Charles Ashmore's Trail - (1888)
• Staley Fleming's Hallucination - (1906)
• The Night-Doings at "Deadman's" - (1874)
• A Baby Tramp - (1891)
• A Psychological Shipwreck - (1879)
• A Cold Greeting - (1888)
• Beyond the Wall - (1907)
• John Bartine's Watch - (1893)
• The Man Out of the Nose - (1887)
• An Adventure at Brownville - (1892)
• The Mocking-Bird - (1891)
• The Suitable Surroundings - (1889)
• The Boarded Window - (1889)
• A Lady from Redhorse - (1891)
• The Famous Gilson Bequest - (1878)
• A Holy Terror - (1882)
• A Diagnosis of Death - (1901)

Before he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as "bitter Bierce" and "the devil's lexicographer." He left behind a nasty reputation and more than ninety short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius.

Brought together in this volume, these stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time.

Readers familiar with the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge will want to turn to Bierce's other Civil War stories. Also included here are his horror stories, among them The Death of Halpin Frayser and The Damned Thing, and such tall tales as Oil of Dog and A Cargo of Cat.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Cathy N. Davidson
• Introduction: Ambrose Bierce, Nonconformist - (1970) - essay by Ernest J. Hopkins
• Foreword Part I - (1970) - essay by Ernest J. Hopkins
• Haïta the Shepherd - (1891)
• The Secret of Macarger's Gulch - (1891)
• The Eyes of the Panther - (1897)
• The Stranger - (1909)
• An Inhabitant of Carcosa - (1886)
• The Applicant - (1892)
• The Death of Halpin Frayser - (1891)
• A Watcher by the Dead - (1889)
• The Man and the Snake - (1890)
• John Mortonson's Funeral - (1906)
• Moxon's Master - (1899)
• The Damned Thing - (1893)
• The Realm of the Unreal - (1890)
• A Fruitless Assignment - (1888)
• A Vine on a House - (1905)
• The Haunted Valley - (1871)
• One of Twins - (1888)
• Present at a Hanging - (1888)
• A Wireless Message - (1905)
• The Moonlit Road - (1907)
• An Arrest - (1905)
• A Jug of Sirup - (1893)
• The Isle of Pines - (1888)
• At Old Man Eckert's - (1901)
• The Spook House - (1889)
• The Middle Toe of the Right Foot - (1890)
• The Thing at Nolan - (1891)
• The Difficulty of Crossing a Field - (1888)
• An Unfinished Race - (1888)
• Charles Ashmore's Trail - (1888)
• Staley Fleming's Hallucination - (1906)
• The Night-Doings at "Deadman's" - (1874)
• A Baby Tramp - (1891)
• A Psychological Shipwreck - (1879)
• A Cold Greeting - (1888)
• Beyond the Wall - (1907)
• John Bartine's Watch - (1893)
• The Man Out of the Nose - (1887)
• An Adventure at Brownville - (1892)
• The Suitable Surroundings - (1889)
• The Boarded Window - (1889)
• A Lady from Redhorse - (1891)
• The Famous Gilson Bequest - (1878)
• A Holy Terror - (1882)
• A Diagnosis of Death - (1901)
• Foreword Part II - (1970) - essay by Ernest J. Hopkins
• One of the Missing - (1888)
• A Baffled Ambuscade - (1906)
• The Affair at Coulter's Notch - (1889)
• A Son of the Gods - (1888)
• One Kind of Officer - (1893)
• A Tough Tussle - (1888)
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - (1890)
• Chickamauga - (1889)
• The Coup de Grâce - (1889)
• One Officer, One Man - (1889)
• The Story of a Conscience - (1890)
• Parker Adderson, Philosopher - (1891)
• An Affair of Outposts - (1897)
• Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General - (1885)
• A Horseman in the Sky - (1889)
• The Mocking-Bird - (1891)
• George Thurston - (1883)
• Killed at Resaca - (1887)
• Three and One Are One - (1908)
• Two Military Executions - (1906)
• The Major's Tale - (1890)
• A Resumed Identity - (1908)
• A Man with Two Lives - (1905)
• The Other Lodgers - (1907)
• A Bivouac of the Dead - (1903)
• Foreword Part III - (1970) - essay by Ernest J. Hopkins
• An Imperfect Conflagration - (1886)
• A Bottomless Grave - (1888)
• The City of the Gone Away - (1888)
• Curried Cow - (1874)
• A Revolt of the Gods - (1886)
• Oil of Dog - (1890)
• The Widower Turmore - (1891)
• The Baptism of Dobsho - (1874)
• The Race at Left Bower - (1874)
• The Failure of Hope & Wandel - (1874)
• A Providential Intimation - (1874)
• Mr. Swiddler's Flip-Flap - (1874)
• The Little Story - (1874)
• My Favorite Murder - (1888)
• The Hypnotist - (1893)
• Mr. Masthead, Journalist - (1874)
• Why I am Not Editing "The Stinger" - (1874)
• Corrupting the Press - (1874)
• "The Bubble Reputation" - (1886)
• A Shipwreckollection - (1874)
• The Captain of the "Camel" - (1875)
• The Man Overboard - (1876)
• A Cargo of Cat - (1885)