14 years before the death of the Titanic, an unknown American writer wrote the novel "Futility". The book describes the crash of a huge liner called "Titan". After the death of the Titanic, the author of the novel Morgan Robertson was named one of the greatest prophets of the XX century.
This prophecy is one of the most amazing in history, so accurately it describes the events that happened to the Titanic. The idea of writing the book arose from the author during his illness, and, as he later claimed, a huge ship suddenly appeared to him in his thoughts as if in reality. He also saw the death of this ship, accompanied by the heart-rending screams of drowning people. The number of coincidences with the real "Titanic" makes the reader horrified when reading this prophetic book.
In 1898, 14 years before the death of the Titanic, the novel "Futility", written by the then unknown American writer Morgan Robertson, was published in England. Morgan Robertson himself, according to some sources, was a retired captain, an experienced sailor, he had to find himself in difficult situations more than once, more than once to see the death of people.
The book told about the ship "Titan", which was considered unsinkable, but sank in the Atlantic Ocean after a collision with an iceberg. The author populated his fictional liner with rich passengers – and here the Titan was surprisingly similar to the real Titanic. The novel begins with the words "This ship was truly huge" - such was the Titanic.
Like the Titanic, the Titan had everything except the most important thing, namely, the required number of lifeboats. There were no other simple but useful things on the giant ship that would help the passengers to escape.
On the fictional "Titan", for example, there was no sharp object on the boat deck - an axe or a hunting knife - in order to cut the ropes by which the boats were suspended. There were no red flares on the real Titanic, which served as a distress signal, and the lookouts did not have binoculars.
In the novel, the "Titan" surpassed all existing ships in mass, and if it collided with any ship, it would simply cut it in half, and he himself would have received, well, maybe light damage in the form of erased paint. In fact, the only floating object, Robertson writes in his book, with which the Titan could not compete in mass, was precisely the iceberg, which as a result destroyed the liner.
Comparison table
Fictional "Titan" / Real "Titanic"
Displacement (in tons)
70000/52310
Length (in meters)
243.8/269.1
Collided side
right/right
Maximum speed (mph)
25/23-25
Number of people on board
3000/approx.2200
Cause of death
Collision with an iceberg/Collision with an iceberg
The month of death
April/April
The safety provided in the design of the ship
Waterproof compartments, automatic waterproof doors/Waterproof compartments, automatic waterproof doors
Number of boats
24/20
As can be seen from this table, the Titanic has a lot of coincidences with the fictional "Titan".
Immediately after the publication, the novel “Futility” was not very popular with readers, and the publishing house regretted for a long time that it agreed to publish the work of Morgan Robertson. But after the death “Titanic” everything has changed. Since the novel turned out to be prophetic, Robertson immediately attracted attention.
"Futility" was republished in 1912, receiving a slightly different title "Futility, or the Death of the Titan", which directly indicated the connection of the events of the novel with the death of the Titanic.
On the one hand, the book brought its author unprecedented popularity, and on the other – he became the object of hatred from the passengers of the Titanic and relatives of the victims. For them, Morgan Robertson was more of an antihero. After the disaster, hundreds of letters began to arrive to him, in which the writer was cursed along with his novel. Many even blamed him for everything that happened.
Morgan Robertson died in 1915, only three years after surviving the Titanic. The man, whom some call one of the greatest prophets of the XX century, wrote several more works shortly before his death. But no one remembers them.