https://allthatsinteresting.com/the-wreck-of-the-titan


In 1898, Morgan Robertson Wrote A Novel About An ‘Indestructible’ Ship That Sinks After Hitting An Iceberg. In 1912, That’s Exactly What Happened
By Katie Serena

Fourteen years before the Titanic sank, 'The Wreck of the Titan' by Morgan Robertson told the story of a large ocean liner hitting an iceberg and sinking in the Atlantic Ocean.

The story goes like this: on a terrible night in April, the world’s largest ship hit an iceberg and sank into the Atlantic Ocean, causing a terrible loss of life. This, as many know, is the story of the RMS Titanic, which sank in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg. But it’s also the story of The Wreck of The Titan, a seemingly prophetic novella that was originally published in 1898.

The novella, written by Morgan Robertson 14 years before the Titanic sank, tells an eerily similar story to the real-life tragedy. Robertson’s ship is large, luxurious, and lacking in lifeboats. Filled with “water-tight” compartments, it is dubbed “Unsinkable.” And yet it does sink, killing hundreds of people.

That said, Robertson’s novella does have some significant differences from the real-life story of the Titanic. And there’s a reason why he was able to seemingly “predict’ the sinking more than a decade in advance.

‘The Wreck Of The Titan,’ The 1898 Novel That Seemingly Predicted The ‘Titanic’ Tragedy

“She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men.” This is the first line of Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novella, Futility. (It was renamed Futility, or The Wreck of The Titan, after the Titanic sank in 1912).

Indeed, The Wreck of The Titan describes a ship that seems chillingly similar to the RMS Titanic. Like the Titanic, which was the largest ship of its day, the Titan is also enormous. The Titanic was 882 feet long; the Titan is described as 800 feet long. Both ships were also luxurious.

The Titanic was packed with amenities, including Turkish baths, a heated saltwater swimming pool, and even a gym. The Titan likewise had “two orchestras and a theatrical company.” Both ships also had ship’s bands to entertain their passengers.

The two ships were also described as especially fast. And because of their watertight compartments, both were described as “Unsinkable.”

Eerily, in the end, both Robertson’s Titan and the RMS Titanic met eerily similar fates. On a night in April, both ships hit an iceberg. Both ships sank. And because of a lack of lifeboats onboard (the Titan had 24, the Titanic had just 20) both ships suffered from high casualties as they went down.

The Titan had two thousand passengers and an unspecified number of crewmen; the Titanic had some 1,300 passengers, as well as around 900 crew members. This meant that the two ships carried roughly the same number of people. However, the Titan’s sinking was far deadlier. Just 13 people survived in the novella. On the real-life Titanic, some 700 survived.

Though The Wreck of The Titan also follows the story of a crewmember who saves a girl, fights a polar bear, and returns her to safety, the novella bears an undeniable resemblance to the real story of the Titanic.

Inside The Seafaring Life Of The Man Who Wrote ‘The Wreck Of The Titan’

According to his New York Times obituary, Morgan Robertson was born on Sept. 30, 1861, in Oswego, New York, and began a seafaring career at a young age. When he was 16, he ran away to become a sailor and spent nine years sailing “nearly all the waters of the globe” before returning to shore.

After working as a jeweler for a decade, Robertson retired due to his failing eyesight. He ultimately decided to try his hand at writing, and wrote a number of “sea tales,” which he based on his own experience as a seaman. He ultimately wrote hundreds of stories, including The Wreck of the Titan.

Given Robertson’s experience at sea, he would have been well-versed in the dangers of icebergs, especially in April (“iceberg season” lasts from mid-February to June, with April being a particularly dangerous month). Similarly, the fact that the Titanic and the Titan sank in the same area can be attributed to the fact that both ships sank in a part of the ocean known as “Iceberg Alley,” another fact which Morgan Robertson surely knew.

Indeed, in the years before the publication of Futility — and long before the sinking of the Titanic — multiple ships sank in the same area after colliding with an iceberg. Thus, Robertson’s invention of a ship that sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg sometime in April is not that surprising. Nor is it a surprise that the Titanic sank there under similar circumstances.

But what about the ship’s name? This is perhaps the eeriest similarity between the Wreck of the Titan and the sinking of the Titanic. There’s no easy explanation for this, though Robertson might have been aware that White Star Lines was in the process of building impressive new ships, starting with the Oceanic in 1870. Subsequent ships had names like Teutonic, Majestic, and Gigantic, which may have inspired him. What’s more, a number of ships called Titania sank in the North Atlantic between the 1860s and the 1880s, which may have also inspired Robertson.

Then again, maybe Morgan Robertson — even unknowingly — predicted future events when he wrote The Wreck of the Titan.
Was Morgan Robertson Prophetic?

The similarity between the sinking of the Titanic and Robertson’s novella was not lost on anyone after the Titanic sank in 1912. Morgan Robertson’s Futility was even reissued as Futility, or The Wreck of The Titan with a few slight adjustments to make it even more similar to the Titanic sinking. And when a woman wrote to him about the similarity between the doomed ship and his novella, Robertson didn’t deny his prophetic powers outright.

“I merely tried to write a good story with no idea of being a prophet,” Robertson replied, according to Mental Floss. “But, as in other stories of mine, and in the work of other and better writers, coming discoveries and events have been anticipated. I do not doubt that it is because all creative workers get into a hypnoid, telepathic and percipient condition, in which, while apparently awake, they are half asleep, and tap, not only the better informed minds of others but the subliminal realm of unknown facts.”

In the end, maybe it’s most likely that Morgan Robertson was able to predict the tragedy of the Titanic because it was predictable. Icebergs were a real danger in the North Atlantic, especially in the spring. Meanwhile, shipbuilders were building bigger and bigger ships at the end of the 19th century — and giving them majestic names. Even the lack of lifeboats, to an experienced seaman like Roberts, might have seemed like an obvious hazard.

Then again, maybe Robertson did have a touch of prophetic ability. In 1914, he wrote a short story called Beyond The Spectrum, in which the United States and Japan go to war after Japan launches a surprise attack on U.S. ships traveling to Hawaii. Just a few decades later, of course, the United States entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.