The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? [Paperback]

Martin Gardner (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998

The Titanic's memory lives on today in documentaries, movies, and even a Broadway musical. Persistent investigators remain on the case, offering new theories to explain its demise. Those who strongly believe in precognition point to Morgan Robertson's sea novel "The Wreck of the Titan", published fourteen years before the Titanic went down, as proof of the power of extrasensory perception.This rare fifty-page novel is reproduced here in full, along with a selection of other writings that seem to foretell the Titanic's fate, including an excerpt from a novel by famous British journalist and spiritualist W T Stead, a short story called "The White Ghost of Disaster", and several poems about ships hitting icebergs in the North Atlantic. Martin Gardner includes notes and running commentary that explore the coincidences and laws of chance as applied to this historical phenomenon. He also includes a new preface with reaction and updates to the original publication of "The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold?".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This wonderful book contains both the best evidence that the sinking of the Titanic was perceived in advance by extrasensory perception, and the best scientific assessment of that ESP evidence.

Exhibit A is the weirdly prescient Morgan Robertson novel published 14 years before the 1912 calamity, The Wreck of the Titan (originally published as Futility). From early-20th-century spiritualist Ella Wheeler Wilcox to modern woo-woo guru Uri Geller, who helped launch a whole Library of the Supernatural series with the strange coincidences in Robertson's book, people have puzzled over how, as Wilcox put it, Robertson managed to "fix on almost the very name which was afterward given to the ill-fated sea monster."

And there are more than 20 startling similarities between the dread tale of the Titan and the real, subsequent Titanic--both ships, for instance, were considered unsinkable, were the biggest ever, grazed an iceberg on the starboard side near midnight on the New York-England line at just over 22 knots, and were owned by a British firm with headquarters in Liverpool and a branch office in New York. On Broadway, to be eerily specific.

Robertson's story, and the story of his life, are interesting, but what makes this book great is the essay that makes sense of it all. The author (and editor of the book) is Martin Gardner, one of the most fun-to-read science writers ever. He is a fellow of CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, and coauthor of How to Think About Weird Things. (Gardner also urges you to read Michael Shermer's delightfully illuminating Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time.)

Gardner also includes the short story "From the Old World to the New," by W.T. Stead, a spiritualist, whose story features an iceberg-caused shipwreck on the North Atlantic, a captain named Edward J. Smith, and two lovers-at-first-sight named Rose and Jack (Kate Winslet's and Leo DiCaprio's characters' names in the 1998 film). After writing it, Stead boarded the Titanic, run by Capt. Edward J. Smith, and died in the shipwreck. (Key Twilight Zone music.)

Gardner includes other good stuff: a neat, evocative photo of the Titanic's Veranda Cafe, plus poems anticipating and commemorating the disaster, the best being Arthur Conan Doyle's "Ragtime!":

Ragtime! Ragtime! Keep it going still!
Let them hear the ragtime! Play it with a will...
There's glowing hell beneath us where the shattered boilers roar,
The ship is listing and awash, the boats will hold no more...
Don't forget the time, boys! Eyes upon the score!
Never heed the wavelets sobbing down the floor!

--Tim Appelo

Product Details

• Paperback: 157 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; Revised edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573922013
• ISBN-13: 978-1573922012
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,254,892 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For 25 of his 95 years, Martin Gardner wrote 'Mathematical Games and Recreations', a monthly column for Scientific American magazine. These columns have inspired hundreds of thousands of readers to delve more deeply into the large world of mathematics. He has also made significant contributions to magic, philosophy, debunking pseudoscience, and children's literature. He has produced more than 60 books, including many best sellers, most of which are still in print. His Annotated Alice has sold more than a million copies. He continues to write a regular column for the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Titanic book rises again, July 15, 1998

By 

Keith Lankford ([e-mail] (Athens, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? (Paperback)

The following review was printed in Doubting Thomas #1 (reprinted here with permission):

I am a fan of Gardner's work, especially his 1952 Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science which helped jump start the skeptical movement. Gardner's wit is always refreshing and the curious reader is never disappointed.

So, it was a great pleasure to see this book being offered again after its initial publication in the mid-80s, not long after the remains of Titanic were found by Dr. Robert Ballard....

I would recommend this book in two ways: to read a good critique on precognition on this specific case, and as a selection of century-old literature that cannot be found in many places.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Did someone actually predict the sinking of the Titanic?, December 17, 2009

By 

J. Guild (Toronto,Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? (Paperback)

I have read several books about the Titanic, and what a surprise when I came across this book.It was the fact that it was about the Titanic that grabbed my attention.Then I noticed that the author was Martin Gardner,a name I was very familiar with;and thought it was another author by the same name.A further perusal showed that it was,in fact,the same author I have known about and had many of his books in my library.Martin Gardner seemed always to have been around,particularly if one was interested in Recreational Mathematics,Puzzles,etc.He was born in Tulsa,Oklahoma,on October 1914.It's interesting to note that he was born less than 3 years after the Titanic sank on April 15,1912. Now at the age of 95,he is still with us,while that fateful night ,now seems so far in the past.I first encountered Martin Gardner while I was in university in the mid 50's via his "Scientific American column,Mathematical Games";which he authored for 25 years.He has over his lifetime ,authored more than 65 books on a variety of subjects.However,he has been,by far,the prominent and best loved author in the world of Mathematical Recreations.
This book is a little different than what one normally thinks of when one thinks of Martin Gardner and his puzzles.
During ,and after,the turn of the century,huge advancements had been made in building and sailing of massive steamships,capable of carrying thousands of passengers and crew,across great oceans.It was a whole new experience,filled with glamor and luxury;but still in its infancy ,as far as methods to identify ocean hazards,coping with accidents,and where the safety of the shiips seemed to be compromised by a belief in invincibility.Many articles,books and stories were written at that time about all sorts of disasters at sea;and often about ships hitting huge icebergs in the North Atlantic and sinking.This book includes the complete novel "The Wreck of the Titan",by Morgan Robertson in 1898,14 years before the Titanic sank.It also includes chapters from another book,"From the Old World to the New",by W.T. Stead and another book ,published in 1912 ,"The White Ghost of Disaster" by Mayn Clew Garnett;as well as some poems from the same period.
Martin Gardner analyzes these and other popular writings from the period and with so much similar stories ;and concludes that it is only a matter of coincidence,entirely within the bounds of normal statistical laws of chance,that someone would make predictions or create stories that seemed to fortell the actual sinking of the Titanic.
As we are all aware,great events,especially disasters,are followed by a wide variety of announcements that they were predicted by someone.Evidence is usually very skimpy but believers are only too ready to believe.Even if some seer happens to get lucky and make a prediction that materializes;we should consider the multitude of othe predictions that that same seer made but never happened and are forgotten about.
A good example might be "The Big One" that will hit California.There has been an endless number of these predictions that have never come to pass,they continue without abatement;and when it does come,which it will,someone will ,through pure luck,get it right.
Anyone who in interested in the sinking of the Titanic;or a fan of Martin Gardner,will enjoy this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for rationalists!, May 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? (Paperback)

Martin Gardner, acclaimed rationalist, debunks those who would call Robinson psychic. Some of the "amazing coincidences" regarding "The Wreck of the Titan" may in fact be explained by the White Star Line's own news releases! Gardner includes the Robinson story, plus lots of other related Titanic material. Great book.