The Book of the Damned (Dover Occult)

Flying saucers, telekinesis, sudden showers of fish from the sky, stigmata, poltergeists, spontaneous combustion: these are a few of the unexplained phenomena Charles Fort (1874-1932) labeled "damned," his term for mysteries ignored or dismissed by scientific orthodoxy. This volume, based on 27 years of research, explores this gray area between science and fantasy. While his interpretations have been called "irregular, whimsical, mutually exclusive, elliptical and contrary," Fort's writing was admired by many notable figures, including Theodore Dreiser, Clarence Darrow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes; moreover, his work became the prototype for latter-day extraterrestrial speculations and helped promote the development of science fiction embracing what are known today as "Fortean themes." Stimulating, bewildering, intoxicating, The Book of the Damned is an intellectual tour de force — brilliantly expressed, sometimes convincing.