Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 – c. 1914) was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States and "possibly the greatest satirist America has ever produced." He was also a Civil War veteran, serving as a first lieutenant with the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment.
His supernatural tales, including "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886), are believed to have influenced the weird fiction of Robert W. Chambers's "The King in Yellow" (1895), which featured Hastur, Carcosa, Lake Hali, and other names initiated in Bierce's tales.
His work, probing the inscrutability of the universe and the absurdity of death, is compared to the horror of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. In October 1913 Bierce departed Washington, D.C., headed for Mexico, disappeared, and was never seen again.