I am the first disciple of Charles Fort. Henceforth I am a Fortean' Since Ben Hecht wrote this line in 1919, Charles Fort has so divided opinion that to "The New York Times" he was 'the enfant terrible of science;' and to HG Wells he was 'one of the most damnable bores who ever cut scraps from out of the way newspapers.' This is the seminal biography of the twentieth century's premier chronicler of the paranormal. Fort provides the impetus for public interest in mysterious phenomena - he coined the word 'teleportation', gathered accounts of spontaneous human combustion, monsters, poltergeists, and what became known as UFOs. His legacy extends to conspiracy theories, sci-fi, graphic novels, film, and of course, the "Fortean Times". Told against the backdrop of jazz age New York and Edwardian London, "Charles Fort: The Man who Invented the Supernatural" is about wonder and mystery, and an author who has become an unlikely and unique cult hero.

About the Author

Jim Steinmeyer has designed illusions for David Copperfield, Ricky Jay, Siegfried & Roy and Orson Welles, and for six Broadway shows including The Beauty and the Beast. A consultant for a six-part BBC documentary on the history of magic, he also designed the illusions for Richard Eyre's Mary Poppins and is a contributing editor of Magic magazine. His previous books include The Glorious Deception and Hiding the Elephant.

Prizes

The curious and compelling story of Charles Fort, pioneer of the public interest in strange phenomena and the inspiration for The Fortean Times, by Jim Steinmeyer, author of Hiding the Elephant

Reviews

Steinmeyer (The Glorious Deception), a preeminent stage and TV designer of magical illusions, shows himself a gifted biographer with this moving study of a 20th-century original. Decades after his death with a cultish following that began in his lifetime, Charles Fort (1874-1932) remains a thinker whose motivation and compositions (e.g., The Book of the Damned of 1919, still in print) maintain their fascination. Despite his subtitle, Steinmeyer knows that the supernatural as a concept existed before Fort; Fort, in effect, brought it back to earth. Assiduously, he culled from the periodical record countless observed instances of the inexplicable: showers of frogs, a rain of blood in North Africa, a flurry of flakes of beef in 1876 Kentucky. Then he ruminated upon the data-not as proof of miracles but as palpable occurrences disregarded by science. To Fort, these hundreds of phenomena that flew (often literally) in the face of accepted theory demonstrated that science was the blinkered religion. His work attracted the enthusiasm of Theodore Dreiser. Steinmeyer is an elegant and unobtrusive author who shows us an entirely fascinating, shy, and witty man. The unpublished autobiographical fragments that Fort penned about his Albany, NY, childhood, achingly poignant, display, as much as his books, a prose stylist like no other. This book is not to be missed. P.S. Have reprints of Fort's work on hand, too!-Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Ben Hecht saw iconoclastic author Fort (1874-1932) as an "inspired clown" who thumbed his nose at science as well as religion, and Fort's imaginative books exerted a strong influence on science fiction, notably novelist Eric Frank Russell. Stage magic historian Steinmeyer (Hiding the Elephant) captures Fort's wry humor, skepticism and wildest notions. Surviving fragments of Fort's unpublished autobiography illuminate his strict Albany, N.Y., childhood. In 1892, Fort became a New York City reporter and editor before his world travels and 1896 marriage. He was befriended by Theodore Dreiser, who shepherded Fort's short stories and first novel into print. Fort also pored through diverse journals to document the paranormal and anomalies rejected by the scientific establishment. Shoe boxes packed with 40,000 slips of paper served as a basis for The Book of the Damned (1919), which saw print because Dreiser threatened to leave his publisher unless the company also published Fort. As more compilations of oddities appeared, Fort developed a cult following, and the so-called Forteans issued journals long after their leader's death. Steinmeyer has emerged from the archives with a wonderful, prismatic portrait of the man who once wrote, "To this day, it has not been decided if I am a humorist or a scientist." 8 pages of b&w photos. (May) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.