Kenneth Roberts (author) - Controversies

Controversies

Three of Roberts' first books were written at least in part to promote the Florida land boom of the 1920s. They were Sun Hunting (1922), Florida Loafing (1925), and Florida (1926). Many people lost a lot of money in the bust that followed. In Roberts' subsequent books with listings of 'other books by this author', these three were usually not mentioned.

Late in his career, Roberts became acquainted with Henry Gross, a retired Maine game warden and amateur water dowser. He and Gross began a long association to use Gross' supposed dowsing abilities to find deposits of water, petroleum, uranium, and diamonds, through a corporation named Water Unlimited, Inc. Roberts documented his experiences in three nonfiction books that were popular successes but that received much criticism from the scientific community. Roberts himself joked that he should have subtitled The Seventh Sense as "Or How to Lose Friends and Alienate People."

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