The Complete Books

by Charles Fort, Damon Knight (Introduction)

"Did beings from outer space visit earth in the past … are the various objects seen in the sky evidences of their visits?
What is the explanation of falls of frogs, falls of fishes, falls of seagulls, which have been recorded from time to time?
How can we account for all the inexplicable astronomical observations that have been made in the past?
How can we answer reports of strange animals, disappearances of men from open sight, curious structures in the snow, talents like teleportation and telekinesis?"
These are the "damned," by which the late Charles Ford meant all the wide range of mysteries that are ignored by orthodox science or explained away improperly.
He worked for 27 years at the British Museum and the New York Public Library gathering material on phenomena from the borderlands between science and fantasy. His research appeared in four The Book of the Damned , New Lands , Lo! , and Wild Talents .
In these four volumes Fort organized and commented on a wild host of flying saucers seen in the sky before the invention of aircraft, flying wheels, strange noises in the sky; correlations between volcanic activity and atmospheric phenomena; falls of red snow; falls of frogs, fishes, worms, shells, jellies; finding of "thunderbolts"; discrepancies in the schedules of comets, sightings on Mars and the moon; infra-Mercurian planets; inexplicable footprints in snowfields; flat earth phenomena, disruptions of gravity; poltergeist phenomena; stigmata; surviving fossil animals; the Jersey devil; Kaspar Hauser; spontaneous combustion; and similar weird effects.
While Charles Ford never actually explained the phenomena, beyond making vague hints of an organic universe and neo-Hegelianism, through the years his following has grown. At first his work was picked up by literary men such as Theodore Dreiser, Booth Tarkington, Clarence Darrow, Havelock Ellis, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Later, "Fortean themes" influenced the development of science fiction, and today his work remains the great predecessor to all extraterrestrial speculations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Paranormal, Science, Occult, Philosophy, Classics, Reference

1152 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1941

About the author

Charles Hoy Fort was a Dutch-American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena.

Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "essentially a satirist hugely skeptical of human beings' – especially scientists' – claims to ultimate knowledge". Clark describes Fort's writing style as a "distinctive blend of mocking humor, penetrating insight, and calculated outrageousness".

Writer Colin Wilson describes Fort as "a patron of cranks" and also argues that running through Fort's work is "the feeling that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels."

Fort's books sold well and remain in print. Today, the terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are used to characterise various anomalous phenomena.

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most people seem to think of Charles Fort as the wacky guy who wrote about fish and other things falling from the sky (as per the lovely cover of this book), but he was actually more of a philosopher who used stories of fish falling from the sky to exemplify his philosophy.

He was extremely rational but also fervently anti-science, or at least against the type of scientific thinking that thinks it can fully explain all facets of this world; hence his feverish insistence on opening our eyes to the fact that very real fish can fall from a very unscientific sky.

Another thing that often goes overlooked is that Fort was also a very good writer, full of passion and barbed humor and irony. Granted, these books are loaded with verbatim transcriptions of thousands of newspaper clippings, which are interesting to the encyclopedia nerd in all of us, but the parts when Fort is on his soapbox are full of fire and fun and might actually fundamentally change the way you view the world.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

delightfully anti-scientific (in a good sense), beautifully written, and wickedly funny

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘All things in the sky are pure to those who have no telescopes.’

This book contains all four of Charles Fort’s books: ‘The Book of the Damned’; ‘New Lands’; ‘Lo!’; and ‘Wild Talents’. ‘By the damned’, wrote Charles Fort, ‘I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science excluded.’ And in these four books (or processions) we have a feat of recorded events of bizarre, strange and inexplicable anomalies for which science could not fully account. And what are these recorded events? They include frogs falling from the sky during storms, monsters, teleportation, poltergeists, and floating islands. They include people who disappear; people who reappear; and people who spontaneously combust. This is an engrossing compilation of miscellaneous attention-grabbing events, approached with both belief and scepticism, and blended with scholarship and humour.

How to read this massive book? I’m pleased that I took Jim Steinmeyer’s advice to read ‘Lo!’ (the third book) first. By the time I got (back) to ‘Book of the Damned’, I was totally engrossed. Fort’s writing is humorous, cynical and witty. In Fort’s view, it is not possible for humans to fully know or define the universe. I especially like his statement that: ‘There is something wrong with everything that is popular.’ Whether or not this is always true, popularity certainly does not guarantee ‘truth’.

The collection of oddities compiled by Charles Fort is fascinating and it is possible to simply enjoy the descriptions without wondering about how and why these events took place. Fort’s floating ‘Sargasso Seas’ in the sky as a means of sucking in and dropping of frogs (and other objects) is as good as any other explanation for frogs falling from skies during storms. The fact that we can’t explain all events doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look for explanations to examine, accept or reject. Now that I have read Fort’s writings, I am keen to read more about Fort himself.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

What more is there to say about Charles Fort? The man spent years combing through newspapers, scientific journals, and other publications, pulling out weird and anomalous tales. Some are creepy, some are commonplace, some are just downright WTF? The first book ("The Book of the Damned") is concerned mainly with anomalous falls of objects like fish, frogs, meat, and blood; the second ("New Lands") mainly mystery planets, anomalous celestial bodies, and what would become Ufology; the third ("Lo!") earthly phenomena, including cattle mutilations and cryptozoology; and the fourth ("Wild Talents") mainly concerns itself with psychic phenomena, people with bizarre physical abilities, and touches on vampirism.

[MKF]

Many call him crazy but there are many more who call him genius. Charles Fort is a man who was not afraid to write books about phenomena that science has ignored for so long. He paved the way to societies interest in the unknown and we have repayed him by many denying him credit and the recognition he really does deserve.
The Complete Books contain all of Fort's work so it is a big book. The Book of the Damned, Lo!, New Worlds, and Wild Talents all covering different phenomena he discovered in news papers. The most known being items falling from the sky to strange disappearences and much more!
Why do I love Charles Fort? He makes you question the world around and look beyond what we see everyday. He does not expect you to believe what he writes, he tells you what he found and creates theories based on it. Some of his theories are a bit farfetched but you can create your own.
Charles Fort is a mixter or philospher, researcher, and skeptic. It is the perfect mixture for a reader interested in the Fortean.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is another that would better be a 3.5. I considered a 4 star rating but marked it down only because it is somewhat dated in the way it's written. That in no way detracts from the books quality or from how interesting the subject matter is.

This is not a book I can get through in a sitting, but can go back to from time to time. Fort's most well known work is The Book of the Damned, an interesting title. The "damned" by Mr. Fort's definiton are those bits of knowledge or information (or possibly facts) that are dismissed out of hand because "they can't be true". For example for centuries it was an "established fact" or "established science" that rocks don't fall from the sky. After all the "educated" asked "how would rocks get up in the sky in the first place?" So anyone who reported a meteorite was dismissed either as a lyer or mad. You see there was not any need to look into it, rocks don't fall from the sky.

From there we get into a collection and discussion of things that are of a more esoteric nature. Fortcollected reports of odd rains, frogs, fish, flesh and blood. He looks into other "unexplained" reports. People who have seemingly vanished without a trace and such all these and more he points out are considered "damed facts".

Fort is a forerunner of others (for example Frank Edwards) who have followed in gathering reports of strange events.

[Richard Horsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fort's books must be read in a vacuum: look at the "unassailable" documentation he claims for yourself and the accounts his thought rest upon invariably fail. But in that vacuum is a fascinating mind: an outsider philosopher with an elliptical style and odd wit, more remembered today as an adjective than a writer. It's good stuff, if you like it weird and quixotic.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven't read a book by this author, grab this collection. Charles Fort was ahead of his time and looks at strange phenomenon and what all those things we see in a dark night could mean.

[Donna K Fitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is my absolute favorite reference book. Various bits of it have inspired me in two of my novels. Fort never ceases to delight me with his unique philosophy and his fierce attitude toward unexamined science. I'll confess I've never read it straight through, but this isn't necessarily the sort of book you could read that way. I think my head might explode if I did, because of all the ideas he packs into these books.

The Book of the Damned is my favorite, not just for all the cataloging of falls of fish, meat, black rains, red rains, aerial phenomena, etc., but also for the conceit of the Super-Sargasso Sea.

New Lands deals largely with astronomical strangeness--planets that are there and then aren't there, meteors, unexpected lights on the moon, and connections between seismological events and the sky.

In Lo!, Fort talks about more strange phenomena, including water falling on one specific area (on, say, a tree) for a period of time, but he also discusses the disappearance of the Marie Celeste, Holy Dancers, and people who disappear and reappear--or who just appear in an odd location.

Finally, Wild Talents presents recurring phenomena, such as people in a city shot by unknown assailants--the "phantom sniper" of 1928, serial fires and spontaneous human combustion. The final chapters deal with instances of "witchcraft"--the poltergeist girl, the "Human Cork," the "Electric Girl."

The book has a wonderful index, although I have found errors in it, but it's essential for such a treasure-trove. Not only can you search by topic, but by location, month and year.

If you have any interest at all in the unexplained, the odd and the delightful in this universe of ours, pick up The Complete Books of Charles Fort. I guarantee you'll be entertained.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

People who are interested in alternative theories for unexplained occurrences, like UFO or black rain, might enjoy these books, but I didn't. I had read that Fort is one of the fathers of sci fi because of his insistence that there can be explanations for occurrences that can not be explained by science. He calls these occurrences "damned" because scientists refuse to acknowledge them. He, however, is willing to think that they are events that can be accounted for, just not in the realm of current science. For instance, perhaps a rain of red dust is the result of a space ship breakup, falling to earth. He has equally interesting explanations for other events.

I was not put off, however, by his alternative theories. I might have read the complete book if that was all. But Fort wrote at the very beginning of the 20th century and was not a writer (although he had been a journalist) and I found his writing obtuse and difficult. He also seems to need to hit the reader over the head with constant repetition of the events others have "tried" (his word) to explain away. I got very tired of reading and reading and making very little progress because of the dense prose and the constant repetition.

However, if you are interested in alternative theories (and some of what Fort mentions CAN be explained by science these days) and the origins of sci fi, you might want to read at least one of the books in this trilogy. Just beware that you'll have to fight to find the interesting ideas.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fortean madness.

[Alytha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stuck somewhere in the middle of it...

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

The collected works of Charles Fort include all his non-fiction, The Book of The Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents. The tome itself is a tour de force comprising Fort's philosophical musings and collected data heavily sourced from libraries, academies, governments, and newspapers from 1800 to the time of his writing (approximately 1930). He presents his neglected data, stories of anomalies, and strange occurrences with his own uncertainty principle, or intermediariness as he calls it.

The style is similar to a blend of Karl Popper's "Conjectures and Refutations" and Charles Mackay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," with the personality and irreverence of Paul Feyerabend. Anyone interested in source text, the origins of knowledge and epistemology, may be surprised by how many thinkers, artists, and scientists must have been influenced by Charles Fort.

To describe this as a foray into the fringe would not do justice to the gravity of the work, which inspired the term Fortean, and would be like describing Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" as a book about animals. There's a lot in The Collected Works of Charles Fort that's forgettable and easily dismissible, but there are countless priceless insights and profound observations, relevant to modern day science, religionists, and investigators, that put this anthology in a league of its own as a distinct American classic (especially for those who are thrilled spelunking for diamonds in the rough).

[James Shaw Jr.]

To be honest, reading all four of these books felt more like a duty than a pleasure. Much of it is a serialism recitation of anomalous phenomena that feels almost like stream-of-consciousness. If you’re a fan of the man and his ideas about the blurry line between science and speculation, you’ll probably enjoy reading *about* him more than reading his actual writings. That said, these books are interesting historical documents. Once we figure something out, we stop reading the speculations of the people who didn’t yet know but really wanted to. For instance, we know now that fishfalls are caused by flocks of birds who get frightened after scooping up a school of fish and spit them out during a storm, as confirmed by bird DNA on the fish, but for centuries there it must have been fun to speculate about why in the world fish would fall from the sky, whether they’re picked up and dropped by waterspouts or fall from some body of water up in the sky, or whether maybe they don’t fall from the sky; it’s a hoax or maybe they swim up during flash floods and witnesses are mistaken as to their origins. That’s what makes these books interesting, as a testament that we didn’t know everything back then and don’t know everything now.

[Bryn Grover · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well ... I went into this with high expectations and excitment. I struggled to read it. His theories provide entertainment to some extent. But the writing is incoherent at times and very repetitive. In his philosophy various mysteries can all be explained by means and notions not acceptable to science. In fact, the 'damned' data likes to things outside the conformity of the community of scientists and experts and lie in areas they would refuse to entertain or explore. Enter aliens and what he calls the Super-Sargasso Sea – some celestial holding bag of goodies where all things on Earth that are lost are mysteriously foun only to be rained down upon the earth again as if clouds collecting water. It took me a long time to weed through this collection of books. Considering they are 100+ years old, I was intrigued. Also considering the term 'Fortean' was derived from his name, I delved into it and really want to love it.

[Anthony O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Charles was obviously a wild man.
Midlife, manages to 'retire' and devote himself to chronicling anomalies.
Lights in the sky, ( decades before the UFO craze) Reflections from unknown cities, frogs falling from the sky, etc etc.
You can skip over a lot. It's about as interesting as reading a phone book. But you easily get the gist.
He supposedly mostly wants to chronicle 'facts' and avoid theoretical speculation. But there's lots of that too. His most memorable phrase is 'I think we're property'. Which sums it all up so very nicely.
He is certainly convinced that however you look at it there is vastly more going on than meets the eye. and surely there is !?
A fascinating mix of skepticism and wide-eyed wonder.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically where the Weekly World News and Hellboy/BPRD got much of their inspiration from. Charles Fort is a controverisal writer whose beliefs, intentions and purpose are still very much for debate.

Part of me highly doubts that Fort would approve of the Fortean Times that sprung from his literary lineage. I think Fort wrote largely to thumb a nose at the Scientific establishment--who at the time was smug without the mastery to back much of it up (I'm thinking of "Knickerbacker Institute" and how much of it seemed to be trial and error).

[Jambe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bruh has the prose of a schizophrenic, but I got through it.

The most insightful quote from this tome has nothing to do with the supernatural:

"As to the job, and anything that is supposed to be not a job, there is only the state of job-recreation, or recreation-job. I have cut out of my own affairs very much of so-called recreation, simply because I feel that I cannot give to so-called enjoyments the labors that they exact. I’d often like to be happy, but I don’t want to go through the equivalence of digging a ditch, or of breaking stones, to enjoy myself. I have seen, by other persons, very labored and painful efforts to be happy. So then I am so much concerned with the job, because, though it hyphenates, there isn’t anything else."

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use this book as a Reference book on all things weird, unnatural, or metaphysical. . . it is not a cover-to-cover read; it's more fun just to pick a section, and read it. His writing is filled with imagination and wit. It is also very well researched. Charles Fort was a one of a kind explorer in the weird and mysterious. This book is a gem.

[Deb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on this one. Although it had some great reports of strange and unusual things in it the writing and deliver around them seemed to make little sense and went in circles.

[Jim B · Rating 1 out of 5]

A semi-coherent collection of ramblings from a science-hating crackpot. I haven't seen such a selection of tortured metaphors since the last book of Vogon poetry I read.

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Fort was one of the most brilliant, original and eccentric voices in the history of the written word. From the first line in "The Book Of The Damned," you know that you are reading something really different. Fort should have been a truly influential literary figure, but his unconventional nature prevented that from happening. Fort wrote two full-length novels that were described as awesome by those who read them, but burned them in a fit of rage and depression. What a loss to history that was. We are left then with Fort's non-fiction, which consisted of four books; "The Book Of The Damned," "Lo!," "New Lands" and "Wild Talents." Fort spent almost every day of his adult life at the public library, poring over old scientific journals and newspapers, collecting stories of the weird and unexplained. He filled his books with these tidbits, and the scientific world's ridiculous responses to them. In between these cases, he waxed passionately, in his quirky, off-the wall style, about anything and everything, throwing out commentary and theories that are unforgetable. He also laughed at himself as much as he laughed at others, and never apppeared to take himself seriously. Fort was the first writer to speak about UFO encounters, altough he didn't call them that. He also was the first one to tabluate strange falls (frogs, blood, fishes, stones, etc.) from the sky and cases of spontaneous human combustion. Fort is a one-of- a-kind literary dynamo that should never be forgotten. He did attract a loyal following during his lifetime, and after his death his fans formed the still-active Fortean Society.

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

An omnibus of four books in which he writes about anomalous and bizarre occurrences. He covers mostly organic things falling from the sky in The Book of the Damned. Things like falling frogs, fish, flora of various types. His clever wit comes through as does his lack of trust in religion and scientists.

New Lands covers mostly inorganic occurrences of stuff falling from the sky. Hail with the likeness of Christ on each piece, a fall of white pebbles, meteors...

Wild Talents covers oddities such as things catching fire in the presence of a particular person as well as spontaneous human combustion. Interesting stuff.

Lo! is more of a mish-mash in which Fort waxes philosophic. Still an interesting read.

I pick this title up at the library after looking up who people were referring to when they say that someone is a Fortean writer. Now I know.

[Bytes Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I also find myself to be an intermediatist. Henceforth, I believe in the philosophy of the hyphenation[real-unreal, material-immaterial, visible-invisible, etc]. It's an interesting position to be for any truth-seeker who is intellectually honest because when you are looking for the truth one can stop at nothing. We may never be able to find the whole truth but I think we can spot a lie when we come across one. Most of the things we were told as "accepted truths" are all yarns or complete BS. I had to read this book because it was often mentioned by Jordan Maxwell (of beloved memory) Great book from Charles Fort. I greatly recommend it. Indeed, Our world is stranger than you CAN imagine.

[Nessdan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe the most important books written in the last 100 years, but probably not. Everyone must read this.

[Darin · Rating 4 out of 5]

this guy should be an american hero

[Natalie]

Christmas present from David. :)

[Norman Howe]

Non-fiction

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

You cannot call yourself a Fortean without reading the complete works. Hard work, but worth the time.

[Daren Veal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A totally fascinating read!