It was “unsinkable” and “indestructible,” “the greatest ship afloat and the greatest of man’s works.”
And then, in 1912, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic with a terrible loss of life.
You would be forgiven for thinking this ship was the Titanic, whose tragic story has captivated the world since the disaster struck 112 years ago this week.
But you would be wrong. Because this was the Titan, the ship prophetically dreamed up by American author Morgan Robertson in his little-known 1898 novel.
In ‘The Wreck of the Titan or Futility’, Robertson eerily predicted one of the most pressing maritime disasters in history.
The Titanic sank in April 1912 with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. Above: the ship leaving Southampton on its maiden voyage
The 1898 novel ‘The Wreck of the Titan or Futility’, by American author Morgan Robertson, eerily predicted the sinking of the Titanic.
His novel began: “It was the greatest ship afloat and the greatest of man’s works.”
‘All the sciences, professions and trades known to civilization participated in its construction and maintenance.
The WhatsNew2Day’s coverage of the book shortly after the Titanic disaster
“On his bridge there were officers who, in addition to being the best in the Royal Navy, had passed rigid examinations in all their studies… they were not only sailors, but scientists.”
And he continued: «Unsinkable… indestructible, it carried as few ships as complied with the laws.
These, twenty-four in all, were well covered and lashed to their chocks on the upper deck, and, if launched, would hold five hundred people.
‘I didn’t carry useless and cumbersome life rafts; but, as the law required, each of the three thousand berths in the passenger, officer, and crew quarters contained a cork jacket, while about twenty circular lifebuoys were scattered along the tracks.
Robertson, an American, was a former sailor who published dozens of novels and also claimed to have invented the periscope.
Like the Titanic, the Titan struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, off the banks of Newfoundland, about 1,000 miles off the coast of New York.
Both the fictional disaster and the real tragedy occurred on a relatively calm sea, at night, in April.
The similarities don’t end there. Both the imaginary ship and the real ship were going too fast and each had a hole in the starboard side.
Robertson’s imaginary ship was owned by a shipping company whose main shareholder was a wealthy American.
The Titanic was part of the White Star Line, whose main shareholder was the wealthy American J.Pierpont Morgan.
Both were passenger liners that were heralded as the largest and most luxurious afloat, as well as being ‘unsinkable’.
When the Titanic sank, more than 1,500 people lost their lives. There was equally appalling loss of life when Robertson’s Titan sank, although he did not specify figures.
The Titanic left Southampton bound for New York. Her sinking has become an object of global fascination.
Robertson provided the Titan with 19 watertight compartments and bulkhead doors that closed in the presence of water.
The Titanic had 16 watertight compartments and bulkhead doors designed to do the same.
The Titan was described as having three propellers. The Titanic was the first ship to have this innovation.
Additionally, Robertson wrote that the Titan had 40,000 horsepower and a top speed of 25 knots.
The Titanic had 50,000 horsepower and the same top speed.
The Titanic carried 3,360 people, while the Titan had 3,000 on board.
The White Star liner was 882 feet long, compared to 800 feet for Robertson’s creation.
The Titanic had 20 lifeboats with capacity for 1,176 people, while the Titanic had 24 boats, enough to save 500 passengers.
In his description of the disaster, Robertson wrote: ‘”Ice,” cried the lookout; “Ice ahead. Iceberg. Just below the bow.”
‘The first officer ran towards the center of the ship and the captain, who had remained there, jumped onto the engine room telegraph and this time turned the lever.
But after five seconds the Titan’s bow began to rise, and ahead, on either side, you could see, through the fog, a field of ice rising at a slope up to thirty meters high in its path. .
‘The music in the theater ceased, and amidst the babel of screams and cries, and the deafening noise of steel, scraping and breaking on the ice… with its keel cutting through the ice like the steel slide of an ice ship, and her With the great weight resting on the starboard bilge, she rose out of the sea, higher and higher, until the stern propellers were half exposed, then, meeting an easy spiral rise in the low ice Its port bow listed, losing its balance, and crashed on its side, to starboard.
Robertson wrote Futility, his first novel, as a warning to humanity in the midst of its fury that shipping companies caused more profits than the safety of passengers.
He claimed to believe that, when writing his novel, he was being controlled by a spirit and had heard “whispered orders” from a “master” in the “great silence beyond.”
The author was born in 1861 in Oswego, New York. The son of a Great Lakes sea captain, he went to sea at age 16 after the sudden deaths of his mother and his sister.
At the age of 25 he began working as a tobacconist and hustler before deciding to write.
Because of his strange beliefs about spirit guides, newspaper editors considered him crazy.
He spent two months in a psychopath ward at New York’s Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, but was released after obtaining a certificate attesting to his sanity.
In his early 50s, Roberton worked regularly for the New York Saturday Evening Post.
He sold the serial rights to two novels and two short stories were later made into silent films: The Closing Of The Circuit in 1914 and Masters Of Men in 1923.
The money he received from large advances went towards nice clothes and visits to bars.
In 1909, he wrote about a war between the United States and Japan, sparked by a surprise Japanese attack on American warships.
History seemed to predict the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, which led to the United States entering World War II.
In other stories, Robertson wrote about submarines, airships and rockets involved in wars between Britain and Germany.
The Titanic before setting sail for New York. She was the most luxurious ocean liner ever built.
The author also dedicated himself to non-fiction, predicting the advance of the submarine against the battleships.
In 1915, when he was 54 years old and British and German submarines were involved in World War I, Robertson began to suffer from severe rheumatism and needed a cane to walk.
In March of that year he decided to visit Atlantic City, New Jersey, to rest but was found dead a day later in a hotel.
He was discovered standing with his hand resting on the side of an oak chest of drawers.
The author died while looking at the Atlantic Ocean through an open window.
Days before, he had told his friend Bozeman Bulger, baseball editor of the Evening World of New York: ‘I am a sailor who has become a writer and inventor.
“From the deck they put me on a desk, from the desk they pushed me to the laboratory, and now I feel like I’m returning to the sea, where I belong.”
In 1998, the then little-known work was discovered by banker Simon Hewitt and republished.
The novel is now available in various formats in bookstores and online.
DISASTER IN THE ATLANTIC: HOW MORE THAN 1,500 LOST THEIR LIVES WHEN THE TITANIC SANK
The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
More than 1,500 people died when the ship, carrying 2,224 passengers and crew, sank under the command of Captain Edward Smith.
Some of the world’s richest people were on board, including real estate magnate John Jacob Astor IV, great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, founder of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Built by Belfast-based shipbuilders Harland and Wolff between 1909 and 1912, the RMS Titanic was the largest ship of its time.
Millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim, heir to his family’s mining business, also died, along with Isidor Straus, co-owner of the German department store Macy’s.
The ship was the largest floating at the time and was designed in such a way that it was to be “unsinkable.”
It had a gym on board, libraries, a swimming pool and several restaurants and first-class luxury cabins.
There were not enough lifeboats on board for all passengers because maritime safety regulations were outdated.
After setting sail from Southampton on April 10, 1912, the Titanic stopped at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland before heading to New York.
On April 14, 1912, four days after the voyage, he hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. local time.
James Moody was on night duty when the collision occurred and answered the watchman’s call, asking: ‘What do you see?’ The man replied, “Iceberg, right ahead.”
At 2:20 a.m., with hundreds of people still on board, the ship sank beneath the waves, taking many with it, including Moody.
Despite repeated distress calls being sent and flares launched from the decks, the first rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, arrived almost two hours later, pulling more than 700 people from the water.
It was not until 1985 that the remains of the ship were discovered in two pieces on the ocean floor.