Over a century ago, the world witnessed one of the most devastating historical events; the RMS Titanic, one of the largest ships ever built, sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean, taking 1,496 lives. What’s even more intriguing is the fact that in 1898, 14 years before the Titanic disaster, the writer Morgan Robertson wrote the novel ‘Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan’, which eerily predicted the tragedy that occurred in 1912.
In the novel, Robertson depicted a fictional ship named Titan, which suffered a strikingly similar fate to the RMS Titanic. Both ships collided with an iceberg on their starboard side on a cold April night, some 900 miles from New York. Even more bizarre was the fact that the fictional ship shared its name with the ill-fated liner – Titan.
As the story unfolds, it’s clear that both the Titan and the Titanic shared more sinister similarities than just their names. They were both billed unsinkable, and each vessel was designed according to a watertight compartment system. Both liners had three propellers and two masts, with just a 80-feet size difference in their length, making the two ships almost identical.
Although some differences existed in the fictional account of the Titan, the similarities are strikingly undeniable. In Robertson’s story, the ship was travelling from New York to Southampton and had a total capacity of 3,000 passengers, with only 13 surviving the tragedy. Thankfully, the survival rate for the Titanic was much higher, with 712 passengers surviving the disaster.
The question remains, was Robertson a soothsayer, or was the incident a mere coincidence? Some believe that Robertson’s experience as a seafarer and his knowledge of maritime events make it possible that he used a scientific approach to predict the RMS Titanic’s unfortunate fate.
Regardless of whether Robertson’s novel is a coincidence or fate, one can’t help but acknowledge the significant similarities between the fictional Titan and the real-life Titanic. With all of these striking similarities, it’s no wonder that ‘Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan,’ has gained renewed attention. There’s no denying the fact that the novel is one of the most intriguing parallel histories ever written.
