Speaking Volumes

 At this point, I cannot think of the Titanic without thinking of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. This is rather annoying since I’ve never even seen the infamous movie. (I knew how it ended and it wasn’t pretty.)   When I was younger, thoughts of the Titanic brought visions of the film, The Poseidon Adventure. Ironically, the silent version of the film The Poseidon Adventure was being screened aboard ship when it sank.

 

But my real intrigue with the Titanic is actually surrounding a book.  In 1898, 14 years before the Titanic’s maiden journey, Morgan Roberston published a novel titled Futility. The novel told of a British ship named the Titan, that sailed in April and like the Titanic had a speed of 24 knots, passenger and crew capacity of 3,000 but sailed with a little over 2,000, was between 800 and 900 feet long and driven with triple propellers. Both the Titanic and the fictional Titan sank 95 miles south of Greenland  after being pierced by an iceberg on their starboard side.

 

There are other coincidences between fact and fiction, some more eerie then others. Not surprisingly, both ships carried wealthy and well known passengers. But conveniently the Titan hit the iceberg "close to midnight", while the Titanic collided with its iceberg at 11:40 p.m.  Both ships lacked enough lifeboats to save all aboard, causing great loss of life.   Yet both ships were claimed unsinkable.

 

While part of me finds it very hard to believe a book written 14 years before the event could be predictive, I find the notion intriguing.   Unfortunately, I have never been able to find a copy of Futility. Aparently in its day, it was not thought of as anything special. However, if you’d like to read other fictionalized accounts of the Titanic written after the event, check out one of these books!