Charles Fort

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‘I am the first disciple of Charles Fort. Henceforth I am a Fortean’ Since Ben Hecht wrote this line in reviewing The Book of The Damned in 1919, Charles Fort – whose very name spawned an adjective, Fortean, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as 'relating to or denoting paranormal phenomena' – has so divided opinion that to Theodore Dreiser he was "the most fascinating literary figure since Poe;" 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 20th century's premier chronicler of the paranormal, an inspiration to anyone seeking significance in chaos. 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 UFO's. His legacy extends to conspiracy theories, sci-fi, graphic novels, film, and of course, the Fortean Times. Fort was first and foremost a writer, and his peculiar brand of agnostic, anti-scientific scepticism remains unique. Told against the backdrop of jazz age New York and Edwardian London, Charles Fort: The Man who Invented the Supernatural is about wonder, obsession, and mystery, and an iconoclastic author who has become an unlikely cult hero.

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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.