Morgan Robertson

The book in question is called Futility, or in some printings, The Wreck of the Titan.

and it was published in 1898 by Morgan Robertson a full 14 years before the Titanic went down and yet it's about a ship called the Titan that's considered unsinkable until it hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage and it sinks.

Cool, right? There are a few other cases like this.

For example, I know that a week before the Krakatoa eruption in August 1883, a newspaper journalist for the Boston Globe had a vivid nightmare about a tropical volcanic eruption in the Pacific on an island, and he wrote it up as a story and published it thinking no one would check, and then was promptly sacked when they did check, only to be reinstated days later when Krakatoa went boom.

Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

Let's look at Morgan Robertson in his 1898 novella, Futility.

This one is arguably the most famous literary coincidence in modern history.

And for good reason.

That makes total sense.

He knew that April was the prime season for ice calving in the North Atlantic.

He simply took the variables he knew existed, named his fictional ship after the Greek mythological figures of immense size and power, the Titans, and wrote out the logical worst-case scenario.

Okay, so Robertson is essentially doing what the Simpsons did with Ebola.

It was the late 1800s, over a decade before the Titanic was even built.

A guy named Morgan Robertson decided he was going to write a book.

He wanted to start a new chapter, a new voyage, if you will, after working in the jewelry industry as a diamond setter.

Before that, Robertson was a first mate in the Merchant Marines.

So while thinking about his new literary career, he decided to focus on what he knew best, sailing and luxury.

More specifically, a luxury cruise liner, the world's largest one.

The book Morgan Robertson ended up writing was called The Wreck of the Titan, or Futility.

Again, this is before the Titanic was even a concept.