History Of The Fort Family

The seminal biography of the twentieth century’s premier chronicler of the paranormal, Charles Fort—a man whose very name gave rise to an adjective, fortean, to describe the unexplained. By the early 1920s, Americans were discovering that the world was a strange place. Charles Fort could demonstrate that it was even stranger than anyone suspected. Frogs fell from the sky. Blood rained from the heavens. Mysterious airships visited the Earth. Dogs talked. People disappeared. Fort asked why, but, even more vexing, he also asked why we weren’t paying attention. Here is the first fully rendered literary biography of the man who, more than any other figure, would define our idea of the anomalous and paranormal. In Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural, the acclaimed historian of stage magic Jim Steinmeyer goes deeply into the life of Charles Fort as he saw himself: first and foremost, a writer. At the same time, Steinmeyer tells the story of an era in which the certainties of religion and science were being turned on their heads. And of how Fort—significantly—was the first man who challenged those orthodoxies not on the grounds of some counter-fundamentalism of his own but simply for the plainest of reasons: they didn’t work. In so doing, Fort gave voice to a generation of doubters who would neither accept the “straight story” of scholastic science nor credulously embrace fantastical visions. Instead, Charles Fort demanded of his readers and admirers the most radical of human acts: Thinking.

Excerpt from Memoirs of the Fort and Fannin Families We felt that the lives of our father and mother and the facts concerning the Fort and Fannin families, united by their marriage, were Of such interest and importance to their descendants that they should be preserved. With much reluctance, and frequently interrupted by illness, my mother, then seventy-seven years Of age, dictated her memoirs. She Omitted much concerning herself, being dis inclined to speak freely of my father's and Of her own virtues, nor did she tell all that was known to the family of my father's long, varied and illustrious career. These omissions were due in part to her modesty, and also to a memory less clear than in early life. Therefore, in order to finish these reminiscences, and present the surviving members of the family more complete biographical sketches of our beloved parents, I have supplemented my mother's memoirs with much additional information that I possess. I have also added sketches, stories, and other matter prepared by different members of the family which throw more light on the Fort and Fannin families and especially on the lives of Tomlinson and Martha Low Fort. I believe that I am in better position to do this than any other member of the family, as I was longer and more closely associated with our mother and have made this collection of family history a work of years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.