• This edition includes the following editor’s analysis: The importance of ‘The Book of the Damned’ as a precursor of pseudoscience

Originally published in 1919, ‘The Book of the Damned’ is historically considered to be the first book written in the specific field of
anomalistics. This unique work was written by American writer and researcher specialized in anomalous phenomena Charles Fort.
Confused by the title, many readers bought ‘The Book of the Damned’ thinking it was a crime and mystery novel. Undoubtedly, its contents would be the strangest thing they had ever read. The twenty-eight chapters rattled off a series of documented and real, but unbelievable events: rain of stones, metallic objects found inside coal mines or inside the bark of a tree, animals of impossible shapes, meteorites of unknown chemical composition, vision of unidentified celestial bodies…