The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility story is very inspiring and amazing, should read this book.

The story was originally published in 1898. The story was reissued in 1912 after the Titanic sank, obviously taking advantage of the suggested similarities of the stories. The author updated the 1912 version (I suppose it should be called a novella) so that the Titan and the Titanic were more alike. This book in the Archive is the 1912 version of the story, along with 3 other stories. (You can tell the 1912 version by the increased displacement and horse-power of the ship reported on the second page; I'm not sure what other changes were made with respect to the 1898 edition.)

Having just read a few of Robertson's nautical stories, I enjoyed this one as much as the others and I felt a lot of sympathy for the protagonist, John Rowland. The story revolves around the wreck, but it's not the whole of the story.

Regarding the wreck, as I understood it, the ship was designed to withstand crashes into other ships and icebergs and still be able to limp into port with little loss of life. Consequently, the ship ran at full speed all the time. But this iceberg was different--it had a long "beach" instead of dropping vertically into the sea. The ship didn't crash into the iceberg so much as slide up the beach until its screws were out of the water. The ship rolled over on its starboard side, causing the boilers to break off their foundations and breach the sides of the ship. When the ship slid back down the ice, on its side, it almost immediately sank when back in the water.

As far as the story being a prophetic warning ignored by the builders of the Titanic, I imagine the publishing world before and after was rife with shipwreck stories of all kinds. I'm not sure what would have made this relatively slight story stand out and scream "Heed me!" to the builders of the Titanic.

I have always been interested in how this man wrote a book that foretold the future because there are too many similarities with the Titanic horrible's sinking of the unsinkable ship and the book The Titan. I don't believe in fortune tellers and crystal balls but I do believe that some folks do have a gift, like a mother's instinct but to be able to so accurately the future 16 years later that's pretty far fetched. Why was there no publicity about this book when the Titanic was thought of building and sailing? Was this book even brought up? The media would have had a field day once the book was becoming real. With how long the Titanic was, the amount of survivors were almost the same number. The perished was almost the same amount of people as in The Titanic. That's too close for comfort. Did anyone notice the similarity with the book when the Titanic's maiden voyage was announced? Did anyone read The damn book? There is another explanation besides this author saw the future or had a dream about the future. This for some reason I do not believe. Maybe the book was written after the Titanic sank and the plan for the book was to make the date 16 years before, I don't know but I know there is more than meets the eye here.

Had this novel been published twenty years later, one would have thought it was based, at least in part, on true events. The ship's name and technical specifications are eerily similar to those of the RMS Titanic, which would set out on its ill-fated maiden voyage in April 1912, some sixteen years AFTER this novel's 1896 publication date.

While it is eerily predictive of future events, there's not much else that's terribly compelling about this novel. The shipwreck happens very early in the story and what little suspense the plot ever is quickly lost as it devolves into a soppy tale of redemption for an only marginally sympathetic protagonist.

Read this for the historical curiosity that it is, but don't expect a literary masterpiece.