Morgan Robertson

Born in Oswego, New York, in 1861, Morgan Robertson went to sea as a young man and spent about a decade in the merchant marine before turning to writing. That firsthand experience gave his fiction its convincing maritime settings and practical detail.

He published novels and short stories, often centered on ships, danger, and life at sea. His most famous work is Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan (later issued as The Wreck of the Titan), a short novel from 1898 that later drew attention because it imagined the sinking of a supposedly unsinkable liner.

Robertson died in 1915 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Though he was not a major celebrity in his lifetime, his sea fiction and the long afterlife of Futility have kept readers interested in his work.