The Wreck of the Titan

By Morgan Robertson

Book Overview

Once seen as a prediction of the sinking of the Titanic , this novella was written 14 years before that ill-fated event of 1912--now, on the centenary anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, the striking similarities can be examined again in this new edition John Rowland, a disgraced former Royal Navy lieutenant, has taken employment as a lowly deck hand aboard the largest ship ever to have sailed, the Titan . One night in deep fog, the ship strikes a gigantic iceberg and sinks almost immediately. Written 14 years before the Titanic's sinking, this novella has been hailed in equal measures as a prophetic work and the work of pure coincidence. Certainly the similarities are striking: two unsinkable ships steam ahead in treacherous conditions, carrying privileged passengers, with insufficient lifeboats aboard.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843913593
• ISBN13: 9781843913597
• Release Date: May 2012
• Publisher: Hesperus Press
• Length: 90 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.8" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Futility: The Wreck of the Titan

This book was a surprise. After reading other reviews I didn't think it would be that great. I was pleased that the plot was thicker than I was expecting and the similarlites to the Titanic were really amazing. I wanted to read it because of my interest in the Titanic and to read this book that was written more than 10 years before the Titanic sank made it even better. The plot and characters were interesting and all in all it was a good read.

This book is eriee

This book predicts the Titantic disaster 14 years before the Titanic sinks. Morgan Robertson predicts everything that will happen to the Titanic. Robertson predicts the the ship's size, how many passengers (rich and poor), how many lifeboats, which side of the ship the iceberg hits and how many people die when the ship takes its final plunge to the ocean floor. The book also predicts the inquieries which take place after the sinking.

What a strange coinsidence

one of the strangest books I've ever read. It has so much in common with Titanic it isn't funny. More like a prophesy book. Everything in this book is almost the same as Titanic: The names of the ships, where the iceberg hit, number of passengers, number of lifeboats, month of maiden voyage and sinking, number of propellars and the length of the ship. I suggest you read this if you want to see one of the weirdest of the many pyschic foretellings of the Titanic disaster. Very, very strange how much Titanic and the Titan (in the book) have in common...

Premonition, or coincidence? 5- Stars, Read this Book!

History is clear. April 15, 1912, the White Star luxury liner Titanic, on its much anticipated and publicized maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, collided with an iceberg somewhere in the freezing North Atlantic. Several hours later, the Titanic sank beneath its icy-cold waters. Over 1500 people were killed. In 1898, fourteen years before this horrifying tragedy, an American author by the name Morgan Robertson penned a short novel called Futility, which told the tale of a mammoth British liner doomed to strike an iceberg in the North Atlantic, killing nearly all on board. His ill-fated ship was named the Titan. This, nine years before the Titanic was ever conceived. An odd coincidence, maybe, but one peculiar enough to elicit goosebumps on the flesh of even the greatest skeptics of the paranormal. What is absolutely chilling is that Robertson's Titan was in fact nearly identical, detail for detail, to the true-life Titanic. From the vessels' time of sailing to their top speeds, from their dimensions to the number of passengers aboard, statistical data on both ships are hauntingly alike. Morgan Robertson, who died in 1915, surprisingly never received much acclaim or reputation for his book, and very little else is known about the man who claimed to have been inspired by an "astral writing partner". It is known, however, that he wrote fourteen novels, all ocean-faring adventures (Robertson himself spent his early life at sea). In addition to Futility, Beyond the Spectrum has also been included in the book you are now holding. It is yet another eerie example of his premonition, a short story alluding to a terrible war between the Japanese and Americans, as well as the use of secret super-radiation weapons. This, some forty-one years before the start of World War II, not to mention almost fifty years before the invention of the atomic bomb. Still odd coincidence? Enjoy.

Strange coincidence...

According to http://www.im.gte.com/titanic/fof.html: English writer Morgan Robertson wrote Futility, an imaginary account of a collision between a large trans-Atlantic oceanliner and an iceberg on her maiden voyage to New York. He called his ship the Titan. Did he cash in on the disaster? Hardly. Robertson published his book in 1898--14 years before the Titanic sank. Robertson later wrote a book, Beyond the Spectrum, that described a future war fought with aircraft that carried "sun bombs". Incredibly powerful, one bomb could destroy a city, erupting in a flash of light that blinds all who look at it. The war begins in December, started by the Japanese with a sneak attack on Hawaii. . . .