The book is an eerie tome of a fictional disaster that so closely matches the future Titanic disaster that conspiracy minded types could make a case that the White Line company read the book and duplicated the events out of some twisted notion of publicity stunt.
The fictional ship Titan was described in the book as 'the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men...equal to that of a first class hotel, unsinkable.'
The hindsight match-up: Both ships were British-owned steel vessels, both around 800 feet, both sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic, in April, "around midnight." Even in Robertson's day the parallel was not lost. After the real Titanic sunk Robertson hustled his book back into a second edition in 1912. A stroke of marketing genius? Or just a macabre guy rubbing it in...
Now for the extra spooky, really nutty crazy part.. Robertson's book placed the iceberg sinking the make believe Titan cruise liner "400 miles from Newfoundland" plowing into it at 25 knots. The real life Titanic struck an iceberg 400 miles from Newfoundland steaming at 22.5 knots!
Don't know about you guys but this has to top Nostradamus predicting the rise of Hitler under the name 'Hister.'
