The novel itself, in the 1912 revised edition (copyright 1898 by M. F. Mansfield, 1912 by Robertson). Chapter I: 800 feet, 70,000 tons' displacement, nineteen watertight compartments, 24 lifeboats for 500 people, April.
“Unsinkable—indestructible, she carried as few boats as would satisfy the laws.” source
Primary text, but the 1912 revision, not the 1898 original. The novel has no institutional author; weight reflects that it is the primary document.
Catalogue entry: a novella first published in 1898 about the Titan, which strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sinks with insufficient lifeboats; thirteen survive.
The summary on the page is automatically generated; used only for plot points also in the text.
OFFICIALUS Senate Committee on Commerce (transcribed by the Titanic Inquiry Project) · 1912
Report section with the ship's boats and the summary table: 2,223 aboard (1,324 passengers, 899 crew), 1,517 lost, 706 saved; total lifeboat capacity 1,176.
“The Titanic was provided with 14 lifeboats, of capacity for 65 persons each, or 910 persons” source
Transcription of the official report hosted by the Titanic Inquiry Project; senate.gov pages on the inquiry returned HTTP 403 from here.
OFFICIALUS Senate Committee on Commerce (transcribed by the Titanic Inquiry Project) · 1912
The report's account of the voyage: ice warnings from the Baltic, Californian and Amerika on 14 April, clear weather and a speed of not less than 21 knots.
Compares Titan and Titanic, quotes an 1897 Practical Engineer report on White Star's Oceanic, explains tonnage-based lifeboat rules and quotes Robertson's reply to Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
“I merely tried to write a good story with no idea of being a prophet.” source
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 037SHEET 3 OF 3
Analysis
Our own reading of the file, written from the sources on the other sheets. Opinion is marked as such.
The core facts are not in dispute. Robertson's book was copyrighted in 1898. Its Titan sinks in April after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic, carrying too few lifeboats. The Titanic did the same in April 1912. That is a striking match, and it is fair to say so.
Three things take the edge off. First, the version usually quoted is the 1912 revision, in which the ship's displacement was changed after the disaster; the original 1898 figures need checking against a scan of that edition. Second, Robertson was writing about a trend that was already in the trade press: a year before the novel, The Practical Engineer described White Star's Oceanic as a 704-foot, triple-screw ship. Lifeboat rules then depended on a ship's tonnage, not on how many people it carried, so a giant liner with too few boats was not a wild guess. Third, the differences are large: the Titan has 13 survivors, the Titanic had 706.
Statisticians Diaconis and Mosteller describe how coincidences grow when “close” counts as a match and failed predictions are forgotten. Our label is Explained: the parallels have known causes, and nothing in the record requires foresight.
What it shows
That a novel about an unsinkable liner called Titan, sunk by an iceberg in April with too few lifeboats, was copyrighted in 1898.
That the Titanic struck an iceberg on 14 April 1912 with lifeboat capacity for 1,176 of the 2,223 aboard, according to the US Senate report.
That giant triple-screw liners and tonnage-based lifeboat rules already existed when the novel was written.
What it doesn't prove
That Robertson foresaw anything: the parallels are general features of large liners of his time.
That the figures in the widely read text are the 1898 originals; that text is the 1912 revision.
That the two disasters match in detail: speed, size, survivors and the course of events all differ.
The other side
The case for something stranger is that the novella is, in Mental Floss's words, well documented, extraordinarily detailed and chillingly accurate, and that Robertson himself did not simply call it luck. Replying to the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, he suggested that creative workers slip into a hypnoid, telepathic and percipient condition, half asleep while apparently awake. A name one syllable short, the month, the iceberg and the lifeboats together are more than many readers will accept as chance.
Encyclopedia entry: the 1912 reissue changed the ship's displacement and added an ending; Robertson denied clairvoyance; links the 1898 scan on HathiTrust and Martin Gardner's sceptical book.
Commentary; used only as a route to sources and for the 1912 changes, alongside the Gutenberg text.
OFFICIALPersi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller, Journal of the American Statistical Association 84 (408) · 1989-12
Peer-reviewed paper: hidden cause, memory and perception, multiple endpoints (counting near-matches as matches) and the law of truly large numbers explain most coincidences.
“Forgetting many failed predictions makes success seem more surprising.” source
Peer-reviewed journal article; copy hosted on a UC Berkeley course page.
TO VERIFY Candidates, not yet checked
The 1898 text itself (HathiTrust scan osu.32435018195867, returned HTTP 403): the Titan's tonnage, length and lifeboat count in the original. Secondary sources say the 1898 edition gave 45,000 tons; not confirmed.
senate.gov pages on the 1912 inquiry (both returned HTTP 403): dates of S. Res. 283, the hearings and the report.
TIME, “Author ‘Predicts’ Titanic Sinking, 14 Years Earlier” (14 April 2012): certificate error and web.archive.org not reachable from here.
Martin Gardner, “The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold?” (1986): sceptical analysis, not opened.
Found, but not linked to a source we trust. Not on the sheets until they are.
