The Peculiar Truth about the Novel That Predicted the Titanic Disaster
Published in
3 min readJun 27, 2023
- Morgan Robertson was born and raised in Upstate New York. His father was a captain aboard ships that sailed the Great Lakes. Morgan followed in his footsteps and became a ship’s first mate.
- The life of a sailor didn’t suit him, however, so he moved to New York City and began a career as a fiction author.
- 1890: Drawing on his maritime expertise, Robertson wrote seafaring tales that were published in popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post.
- Over a period of 25 years, he went on to pen 200 short stories and 14 novels. Nearly all of them were about life at sea.
- Robertson never received literary acclaim. Nor did he strike it rich as an author. He barely made any money off his writing at all.
- One of his short novels would eventually be recognized, however — not for its fine writing but for its startling prescience of true events.
- The book sold few copies at the time it was released in 1898. Several years later, though, it was reissued and became a bestseller.
- The novel was entitled Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan.
- It’s the fictional tale of an alcoholic deckhand named John Rowland aboard an English vessel called the Titan.
