Discouraged, Fort burnt the manuscripts, but soon began work on the book that would change the course of his life, The Book of the Damned (1919), which Dreiser helped to get published. These books caught the attention of writer Theodore Dreiser, who tried to get them published, but to no avail. During 1915, Fort began to write two books, titled X and Y, the first dealing with the idea that beings on Mars were controlling events on Earth, and the second with the postulation of a sinister civilization extant at the South Pole. Reviews were mostly positive, but it was unsuccessful commercially. įort wrote 10 novels, although only one, The Outcast Manufacturers (1909), a tenement tale, was published. įort's experience as a journalist, coupled with his wit and contrarian nature, prepared him for his real-life work, ridiculing the pretensions of scientific positivism and the tendency of journalists and editors of newspapers and scientific journals to rationalize. In 1917, Fort's brother Clarence died his portion of the same inheritance was divided between Fort and his other brother, Raymond. Fort died in 1916, and a modest inheritance gave Fort enough money to quit his various day jobs and to write full-time. In 1906, he began to collect accounts of anomalies. For a few years, the newly married couple lived in poverty in the Bronx while Fort tried to earning a living writing stories for newspapers and magazines. They were married on Octoat an Episcopal church. When he returned home, he was nursed by Anna Filing, whom he had known since childhood.

He travelled through the western United States, Scotland, and England, until becoming ill in Southern Africa. Īt age 18, Fort left New York to embark on a world tour to 'put some capital in the bank of experience'. An autodidact, his considerable knowledge of the world was due mainly to his extensive personal reading. Although Fort was described as curious and intelligent, he was not a good student. Fort developed a strong sense of independence during his early years.Īs a young adult, Fort wanted to be a naturalist, collecting sea shells, minerals, and birds. Fort's biographer, Damon Knight, suggested that his distrust of authority began in his treatment as a child. His father, a grocer, was an authoritarian, and in his unpublished autobiography Many Parts, Fort mentions the physical abuse he endured from his father. Fort was born in Albany, New York, in 1874, of Dutch ancestry.

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