The Story and this Edition

Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" combines the journalistic depiction often present in Civil War stories with the eerie qualities we might find in ghost stories. This combination of realistic portrayal and surreal imagination is nowhere more clear than in the film version of the story created in 1962 by Robert Enrico, a gritty visual recording but also a phantasmic exploration of escape.

Our edition of the story picks up on this blended spirit, combining the text with excerpts from the film to create a hybrid that is neither print nor film. This edition also allows ongoing commentary on the part of readers, adding more possibilities for the story to diverge from fixed forms. The original development of this edition was undertaken by students at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Please see the list of developers for more information.