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The Book of the Damned
The book for which I'm best known, Ishmael, came into being over a twelve-year period, beginning in 1979. It wasn't work on a single book. Rather, it was work on different versions of what eventually became a single Ishmael, the eighth version and the only one in which the teacher Ishmael appears.When I started writing The Book of the Damned in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print.Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four . . . but it just wasn't there. I clung to it for a long time after issuing the first three parts, desperately hoping to find a way to produce additional parts that would bring it to the conclusion I knew was "out there.” What I'd done was terrific—and complete in its own way—but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes . . . Another ten years passed before I found the way, a completely different way . . . in Ishmael, which was the embodiment of my message, providing the foundation for the clarifications, amplifications, and extensions still to come. But publishing The Book of the Damned had been no mistake. It deserved to be published, and it still does. Those lightning strikes illuminate an apocalyptic landscape never seen before—or after, in any of my later books (including Ishmael).
89 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1982
38 people are currently reading
263 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Quinn
53 books1,895 followersI had and did the usual things -- childhood, schools, universities (St. Louis, Vienna, Loyola of Chicago), then embarked on a career in publishing in Chicago. Within a few years I was the head of the Biography & Fine Arts Department of the American Peoples Encyclopedia; when that was subsumed by a larger outfit and moved to New York, I stayed behind and moved into educational publishing, beginning at Science Research Associates (a division of IBM) and ending as Editorial Director of The Society for Vision Education (a division of the Singer Corporation).
In 1977 I walked away from SVE and this very successful career when it became clear that I was not going to able to do there what I really wanted to do...which was not entirely clear. A few months later I set my feet on a path that would change my life completely. It was a path made up of books -- or rather versions of a book that, after twelve years, would turn out to be ISHMAEL.
The first version, written in 1977-78, called MAN AND ALIEN, didn't turn out to be quite what I wanted, so wrote a second, called THE GENESIS TRANSCRIPT. Like the first version, this didn't satisfy me, so I wrote a third with the same title. THE BOOK OF NAHASH, abandoned unfinished, was the fourth version.
When I started writing version five, THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four... but it just wasn't there. What I'd done was terrific -- and complete in its own way -- but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes.
And so, on to versions six and seven (both called ANOTHER STORY TO BE IN). I knew I was close, and version eight was it -- the first and only version to be a novel and the first and only version inhabited by a telepathic gorilla named Ishmael.
ISHMAEL was a life-changing book. It began by winning the Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given to a single literary work. It would come to be read in some 25 languages and used in classrooms from mid-school to graduate school in courses as varied as history philosophy, geography, archaeology, religion, biology, zoology, ecology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.
But in 1992, when ISHMAEL was published, I had no idea what I might do next. My readers decided this for me. In letters that arrived by the bushel they demanded to know where this strange book came from, what "made" me write it. To answer these questions I wrote PROVIDENCE: THE STORY OF A FIFTY-YEAR VISION QUEST (1995).
But there were even more urgently important questions to be answered, particularly this one: "With ISHMAEL you've undermined the religious beliefs of a lifetime. What am I supposed to replace them with?" I replied to this with THE STORY OF B (1996).
The questions (and books) kept coming: Why did Ishmael have to die? This gave rise to MY ISHMAEL: A SEQUEL (1997), in which it's revealed that Ishmael was not only far from being dead but far from being finished with his work as a teacher. The question "Where do we go from here?" was the inspiration for BEYOND CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY'S NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE (1999), a very different kind of book.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
I had always taken as my guiding principle these words from André Gide: "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it.
In 1977 I walked away from SVE and this very successful career when it became clear that I was not going to able to do there what I really wanted to do...which was not entirely clear. A few months later I set my feet on a path that would change my life completely. It was a path made up of books -- or rather versions of a book that, after twelve years, would turn out to be ISHMAEL.
The first version, written in 1977-78, called MAN AND ALIEN, didn't turn out to be quite what I wanted, so wrote a second, called THE GENESIS TRANSCRIPT. Like the first version, this didn't satisfy me, so I wrote a third with the same title. THE BOOK OF NAHASH, abandoned unfinished, was the fourth version.
When I started writing version five, THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four... but it just wasn't there. What I'd done was terrific -- and complete in its own way -- but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes.
And so, on to versions six and seven (both called ANOTHER STORY TO BE IN). I knew I was close, and version eight was it -- the first and only version to be a novel and the first and only version inhabited by a telepathic gorilla named Ishmael.
ISHMAEL was a life-changing book. It began by winning the Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given to a single literary work. It would come to be read in some 25 languages and used in classrooms from mid-school to graduate school in courses as varied as history philosophy, geography, archaeology, religion, biology, zoology, ecology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.
But in 1992, when ISHMAEL was published, I had no idea what I might do next. My readers decided this for me. In letters that arrived by the bushel they demanded to know where this strange book came from, what "made" me write it. To answer these questions I wrote PROVIDENCE: THE STORY OF A FIFTY-YEAR VISION QUEST (1995).
But there were even more urgently important questions to be answered, particularly this one: "With ISHMAEL you've undermined the religious beliefs of a lifetime. What am I supposed to replace them with?" I replied to this with THE STORY OF B (1996).
The questions (and books) kept coming: Why did Ishmael have to die? This gave rise to MY ISHMAEL: A SEQUEL (1997), in which it's revealed that Ishmael was not only far from being dead but far from being finished with his work as a teacher. The question "Where do we go from here?" was the inspiration for BEYOND CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY'S NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE (1999), a very different kind of book.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
I had always taken as my guiding principle these words from André Gide: "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 8, 2015
A quick read. Straight to the point and brutal with its blunt, and correct, view of reality.
For people too lazy to read, this can easily be knocked out in a single sitting.
For people too lazy to read, this can easily be knocked out in a single sitting.
October 30, 2018
If you've read Daniel Quinn's books you will not find much new here, but- there's an edge to Quinn's beliefs. Written by a younger Quinn you can sense his bravado, his smug dismissal of the world as it is.
"Man is not the son of god, he is the son of apes."
"Man is not the son of god, he is the son of apes."
December 9, 2018
I love Daniel Quinn.
I love Daniel Quinn's "core" books-- "Ishmael," "The Story of B," "My Ishmael."
I came across "The Book of the Damned"a few years back, read it, and wasn't terribly impressed.
I read it again last week and I have to say that I liked it very, very much.
"The Book of the Damned" is in a sense an early draft of "Ishmael." Really, it's not an early draft of "Ishmael" at all, but rather an early attempt to capture the ideas that drove that later book. "Ishmael" and the other main books may be "fiction," but the fiction only exists as a frame on which to hang Quinn's ideas. His one big idea, really.
"The Book of the Damned" is an early shot at that.
It has none of the story line that you get in the other books, and this time around I was really glad for that. I liked getting it straight. The ideas, unfiltered.
Although I've read all of Quinn's books, most of them more than once, I still found some of the pages in this short, simple book surprisingly challenging. The straight forwardness of some of Quinn's comments hit close to home (our tendency, for instance, to see thousands of generations of humanity as having "no meaning," as being "prehistory," because they weren't doing the sorts of things we're doing now). And of course there's the whole food production thing, the internal struggle, the challenge posed by the counterintuitive idea that increasing food production is not the way to solve world hunger.
I love this book's depiction of "Homo magister," a new variety of human "born with his feet on the path of extinction." And I like his explanations of the Law of Life, a law not written on stone or in books but into the web of life, a law not about "thou shalts" but written like the law of gravity is written, a law that explains rather than dictates, one that is always, always followed.
Good book.
Not sure how it would read for those not already familiar with the ideas. The book stops short. He wrote three parts, then abandoned it for other ways of telling the same story. It's an abrupt, awkward stop, and might leave questions for some readers.
I love Daniel Quinn's "core" books-- "Ishmael," "The Story of B," "My Ishmael."
I came across "The Book of the Damned"a few years back, read it, and wasn't terribly impressed.
I read it again last week and I have to say that I liked it very, very much.
"The Book of the Damned" is in a sense an early draft of "Ishmael." Really, it's not an early draft of "Ishmael" at all, but rather an early attempt to capture the ideas that drove that later book. "Ishmael" and the other main books may be "fiction," but the fiction only exists as a frame on which to hang Quinn's ideas. His one big idea, really.
"The Book of the Damned" is an early shot at that.
It has none of the story line that you get in the other books, and this time around I was really glad for that. I liked getting it straight. The ideas, unfiltered.
Although I've read all of Quinn's books, most of them more than once, I still found some of the pages in this short, simple book surprisingly challenging. The straight forwardness of some of Quinn's comments hit close to home (our tendency, for instance, to see thousands of generations of humanity as having "no meaning," as being "prehistory," because they weren't doing the sorts of things we're doing now). And of course there's the whole food production thing, the internal struggle, the challenge posed by the counterintuitive idea that increasing food production is not the way to solve world hunger.
I love this book's depiction of "Homo magister," a new variety of human "born with his feet on the path of extinction." And I like his explanations of the Law of Life, a law not written on stone or in books but into the web of life, a law not about "thou shalts" but written like the law of gravity is written, a law that explains rather than dictates, one that is always, always followed.
Good book.
Not sure how it would read for those not already familiar with the ideas. The book stops short. He wrote three parts, then abandoned it for other ways of telling the same story. It's an abrupt, awkward stop, and might leave questions for some readers.
July 7, 2008
This is an incredibly insightful look at how, over the past few thousand years, humans have taken the steering wheel over from God and are leading ourselves toward our own extinction after existing on Earth for millions of years. Perhaps the Ptolemaic model of the universe may still be residual in our attitudes regarding existence. This book is a reminder that the universe doesn’t center around the Earth and existence encompasses all living things.
January 3, 2016
The idea is the same as in his more popular book, Ishmael, only without the background story of a teaching Gorilla. I'm not sure which one I prefer. This one seems to go into more detail, while Ishmael is, thanks to the story, more captivating, more outrageous, and ultimately more enjoyable. However, the ideas both books try to convey stand on their own in this work, without distraction, and without any story to hide behind.
April 26, 2017
If you read Ishmael than this book might be a disappointment to you. A lot of the same ideas are shared between the two - mainly the theme of needing to rewrite mankind's story from master of the natural world to member of the natural world. Book of the Damned is more non-fiction sociology and less storytelling, and there's an overwhelming doom and gloom, pessimistic, nihilist tone that I didn't personally enjoy.
June 18, 2017
The law of life
Thinking outside the box has become a slogan, sometimes meaningless. Much harder to do is think outside our cultural s'mores. Daniel Quinn does this beautifully and I think most of us who read him know instinctually he is right. Isn't it sad that we live in Paradise and have made a hell out of it?
Thinking outside the box has become a slogan, sometimes meaningless. Much harder to do is think outside our cultural s'mores. Daniel Quinn does this beautifully and I think most of us who read him know instinctually he is right. Isn't it sad that we live in Paradise and have made a hell out of it?
August 8, 2025
The best part about this book is that it’s short and doesn’t take much of your time. Still, it’s very redundant (both within itself and compared to Quinn’s other works like “Ishmael”).
The book feels a little egotistical, highlighted by Quinn’s own line: “Triply damned Quinn. He isn’t playing fair. He isn’t talking to scholars. He is talking to people. Somebody hang him quick.”
This book gets a 2/5 from me. If it were by a lesser-known author, maybe a 3/5. But coming from Quinn, this feels like a miss.
The book feels a little egotistical, highlighted by Quinn’s own line: “Triply damned Quinn. He isn’t playing fair. He isn’t talking to scholars. He is talking to people. Somebody hang him quick.”
This book gets a 2/5 from me. If it were by a lesser-known author, maybe a 3/5. But coming from Quinn, this feels like a miss.
October 10, 2022
Anyone who is a fan of Quinn’s Ishmael should read this book. It contains the backbone of the argument laid out in Ishmael, and one I would recommend reading AFTER one spends some time on the text of Ishmael.
I appreciate this text so much, but am certainly grateful it transformed itself into my favorite book.
I appreciate this text so much, but am certainly grateful it transformed itself into my favorite book.
October 18, 2020
An origin story for human
You can really tell this is one of the firsts attempts of the author to explain human Origins and how we're supposed to live. Short and sweet, straight to the point.
You can really tell this is one of the firsts attempts of the author to explain human Origins and how we're supposed to live. Short and sweet, straight to the point.
July 11, 2023
Straight to the point about the backwards ways of Homo magister ( Man the ruler and master ). In some ways more enjoyable than Ishmael.
Available for free as as audio file narrated by Quinn himself, at the Ishmael website (90 minutes in lenght)
Available for free as as audio file narrated by Quinn himself, at the Ishmael website (90 minutes in lenght)
December 17, 2019
This is a mini version of Ishmael. I love Quinn's thinking. Very smart. Makes me want to go revisit the Ishmael trilogy!
September 19, 2020
Brilliant & brutally insightful! Looking forward to reading Ishmael, soon.
March 2, 2023
A very early version of the new ideas found in Ishmael and The Story of B.
August 14, 2023
Read Ishamel!
November 1, 2023
This little booklet has much of the core message of the award-winning novel Ishmael, but the latter is much better.
September 16, 2025
Philosophy from Mr. Quinn. If you read Ishmael or any others and liked them, then you may like reading this book.
January 18, 2021
The message that Quinn expressed in this book had the power to change the world.
A quick, easy read.
I suggest reading Ishmael, My Ishmael, and story of B to compliment this book.
A quick, easy read.
I suggest reading Ishmael, My Ishmael, and story of B to compliment this book.
July 7, 2008
I think this is awesome and unique.
April 12, 2017
glimpses of Ishmael...the real masterpiece
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews