 |
| Morgan Robertson and the First Edition of his novel "Futility". |
I've been interested in the Titanic since its discovery in 1985. I started meticulously researching Titanic in 1997 when I was a teenager, and began collecting books, which by now has turned into a large library.
There is one book in my collection that still baffles me to this day. It is a short novel called "Futility" or "The Wreck of the Titan", written in 1898 by Morgan Robertson.
Robertson was an American writer and what some considered to be somewhat of a psychic due to his eerie predictions of future events in his short but compelling stories.
Robertson denied claims that he had psychic abilities. He was the son of a ship captain on the Great Lakes and served with the United States Merchant Marine from 1876 to 1899. He claimed that his knowledge of the sea, ships, and shipbuilding is what contributed to the creation of his stories relating to ships at sea, and not to any kind of psychic ability.
However, it still doesn't explain the similarities of the "Futility" story to the forthcoming disaster of Titanic.
In his book he tells of "Titan", a huge ocean liner that strikes a North Atlantic iceberg and sinks with a great loss of life. The size, speed, and fate of his ship are strangely similar to that of Titanic. You must remember that the original version of this book was written in 1898 and construction on Titanic didn't begin until 11 years later in March 1909.
In 1914, two years after the Titanic disaster, Robertson released a new version of "Futility" with some changes that more closely resemble the events of the Titanic disaster. The new version was published in a volume that also included "Beyond the Spectrum", a story of America and Japan going to war after Japan conducts a sneak attack on an American fleet of ships. Strangely like an event that would happen at Pearl Harbor 27 years later.
Robertson died on March 24, 1915.
The original 1898 version of "Futility" or "The Wreck of the Titan" is a rare commodity, but the newer version is easily available. Whatever version, this book is a must in a Titanic enthusiast's library.