Morgan Robertson

Born in Oswego, New York, in 1861, Morgan Robertson spent years in the merchant marine before turning to writing. That firsthand seafaring experience shaped much of his fiction, which often draws on the routines, dangers, and folklore of life aboard ship.

He wrote short stories and novels, and he is remembered above all for Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan (1898), a novella about a supposedly unsinkable ocean liner that is lost after striking an iceberg. The book later drew lasting attention because of its similarities to the real sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

Robertson also claimed to have invented the periscope, though that claim is usually presented cautiously. He died in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1915, and his reputation endures mainly through his maritime fiction and the long afterlife of Futility.