LISTING THE FULL CONTENTS FOR FORTEAN STUDIES - THE ERSTWHILE SISTER SCHOLARLY JOURNAL OF FORTEAN TIMES

 

Front covers of Vols 1-4 of Fortean Studies (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I recently received an enquiry from Facebook follower Mike Robe, asking if I knew of anywhere online that contained a complete list of contents for each of the seven published volumes of Fortean Studies – the scholarly journal published annually-ish from 1994 to 2001 inclusive by John Brown Publishing of London for the long-running monthly British magazine Fortean Times, which is famously devoted to all matters of a mysterious, inexplicable, and truly Fortean nature. After spending some time checking online, I was very surprised to discover that such listings were indeed conspicuous only by their apparent absence there.

Having been fortunate enough to contribute to virtually every Fortean Studies volume an article of my own (each of which I have subsequently expanded, updated, and included as a chapter in one of my books), I'm very familiar with this journal's contents and their outstanding scholarly merit, collectively constituting a very sizeable corpus of in-depth, extensively-researched  contributions too lengthy and specialized for publication in Fortean Times, thus explaining why Fortean Studies was established. It's a great pity that it ceased publication after just seven volumes, but at least many copies of each of these still exist, offering an authoritative, highly-informative, fascinating read for everyone interested in Fortean phenomena.

Consequently, as a response both to Mike's enquiry and to what I feel to be a necessity that the contents of Fortean Studies should, very deservedly, be brought to the widespread attention of online readers, I am presenting herewith a series of scans of the front cover and, on the back cover, the list of contents for each Fortean Studies volume from my own library.

NB – Please note that Vol. 1 does contain an article of mine, 'A Belfy of Crypto-Bats', positioned directly after Michel Raynal's giant octopus article, but for some unexplained reason it was omitted from the list of contents.

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 1, 1994 – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 2, 1995 – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 3, 1996 – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 4, 1998 [for 1997] – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 5, 1998 – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 6, 1999 – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

Fortean Studies, Volume 7, 2001 – click to expand for reading purposes (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

Exceptional pressures of work meant that I was unable to contribute an article to Vol. 6, whereas the article on winged cats that I was planning for Vol. 7 proved so arduous in terms of length and required research that I couldn't complete it in time to meet its publication deadline (it finally appeared almost a decade later, in my book Dr Shuker's Casebook). Nevertheless, I did still contribute to Vol. 7, inasmuch as I was nominated as a reviewer by its editors to evaluate Darren Naish's sea serpent article in manuscript form and offer my opinion as to whether it should be published in Fortean Studies. After reading it, I stated that it should be, so it was.

Second-hand copies of Fortean Studies still appear for sale quite frequently on online auction and bookstore sites, but such listings rarely provide full details of these publications' contents. So I hope that this present ShukerNature post will be of benefit to readers who are thinking of purchasing any Fortean Studies volumes but until now have been deterred from doing so by being uncertain of what they contain.

I wish to thank most sincerely my longstanding friend and fellow cryptozoology enthusiast Mike Playfair for very kindly gifting me his spare copy of Fortean Studies Vol. 7 after learning that this was the one volume that I hadn't been able to track down.

I also wish to pay tribute to the memory of the late Steve Moore, who edited all but that final, seventh volume, for encouraging me to contribute to Fortean Studies and also for being another longstanding friend of mine within the Fortean community.

 

Front covers of Vols 5-7 of Fortean Studies (© Fortean Times/John Brown Publishing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)