Morgan Robertson

File:Morgan Robertson.jpg

Morgan Robertson

Morgan Andrew Robertson (September 30, 1861 – March 24, 1915) was a well-known American author of short stories and novels and the self-claimed inventor of the periscope. He was the son of Andrew Robertson, a ship captain on the Great Lakes, and Amelia (Glassford) Robertson.

Life and career

Morgan went to sea as a cabin boy and was in the merchant service from 1866 to 1877, rising to first mate. Tiring of life at sea, he studied jewelry making at Cooper Union in New York City and worked for 10 years as a diamond setter. When that work began to impair his vision, he turned to writing sea stories, placing his work in such popular magazines as McClure's and the Saturday Evening Post. Robertson never made much money from his writing, a circumstance that greatly embittered him. Nevertheless, from the early 1890s on he supported himself as a writer and enjoyed the company of artists and writers in a small circle of New York's bohemia. On the afternoon of March 24, 1915 Robertson was found dead in a hotel room in Atlantic City; the cause of death was found to be heart disease.

Futility

He is best known for his short novel Futility, first published in 1898. This story features an enormous British passenger liner called the SS Titan, which, deemed to be unsinkable, carries an insufficient number of lifeboats. On a voyage in the month of April, the Titan hits an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic, resulting in the loss of almost everyone on board. There are some similarities to the real-life disaster of the RMS Titanic. The book was published fourteen years before the actual Titanic, carrying an insufficient number of lifeboats, hit an iceberg on the night of April 15, 1912 and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

Other works

In 1905, Robertson's book The Submarine Destroyer was released. It described a submarine that used a device called a periscope. Despite Robertson's later claims that he had "invented" a prototype periscope himself (and was refused a patent), Simon Lake and Harold Grubb had perfected the model used by the U.S. Navy by 1902, three years before Robertson's "prescient" novel.

In 1914, in a volume that also contained a new version of Futility, Robertson included a short story called "Beyond the Spectrum", which described a future war between the United States and the Empire of Japan, a popular subject at the time. Japan does not declare war but instead launches sneak attacks on United States ships en route to the Philippines and Hawaii; an invasion fleet about to launch a surprise attack on San Francisco is stopped by the hero using the weapon from a captured Japanese vessel. The title refers to an ultraviolet searchlight used by the Japanese, but invented by the Americans, to blind American crews.

Robertson was the author of Primordial / Three Laws and the Golden Rule, a novella about shipwrecked children growing up together and falling in love on a desert island. Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs acknowledge Robertson's contribution to the works of Henry De Vere Stacpoole, particularly The Blue Lagoon. They believe that both Robertson's and Stacpoole's writings influenced Burroughs in his creation of Tarzan of the Apes.

On March 24, 1915, Robertson was found dead in his room at the Alamac Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He was 53 years of age. It was initially believed that he died of an overdose of paraldehyde., however it was later determined to be death from heart disease.

Books and stories

This list may not be complete.

• Sinful Peck, Novel; Publisher: Harper & Brothers, New York - London 1903
• Spun-Yarn: Sea Stories, Anthology; Publisher: Harper & Brothers, New York - London 1898
  • The Slumber of a Soul: A Tale of a Mate and a Cook
  • The Survival of the Fittest
  • A Creature of Circumstance
  • The Derelict "Neptune"
  • Honor Among Thieves
• Over the Border, Anthology; Publisher: McClure's Magazine and Metropolitan Magazine (Unknown publishing date)
  • The Last Battleship
  • Absolute Zero
  • Over the Border
  • The Fire Worshiper
  • The Baby
  • The Grinding of the Mills
  • The Equation
  • The Twins
  • The Brothers
  • Kimset
  • The Mate of His Soul
  • The Voices
  • The Sleep Walker
• Shipmates, Anthology; Publisher: D. Appleton and Company, New York 1901
  • The Nuisance
  • The Fool Killer
  • The Devil and His Due
  • Polarity: A Tale of Two Brunettes
  • A Tale of a Pigtail
  • The Man at the Wheel
  • The Day of the Dog
  • At the End of the Man-rope
  • A Fall From Grace
  • The Dutch Port Watch
  • On the Forecastle Deck
• Land Ho!, Anthology; Publisher: New York, London, Harper & Brothers 1896-1905 containint:
  • The Dollar
  • The Ship-Owner
  • The Wave
  • The Cook and the Captain
  • The Line of Least Resistance
  • The Lobster
  • On Board The “Athol”
  • The Magnetized Man
  • The Mistake
  • The Submarine Destroyer
  • The Dancer
  • On the Rio Grande
• Where Angels Fear to Tread and Other Stories of the Sea, anthology published 1899, The Century Co., containing:
  • Where angels fear to tread
  • The brain of the battle-ship
  • The wigwag message
  • The trade-wind
  • Salvage
  • Between the Millstones
  • The Battle of the Monsters
  • From the royal-yard down
  • Needs must when the devil drives
  • When Greek meets Greek
  • Primordial
• Masters of Men, published 1901, Curtis Publishing Co.
  • Book I - The Age of Stone
  • Book II - The Age of Iron
  • Book III - Barbarism
  • Book IV - Civilization
• Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan (In 1912 Futility was renamed Wreck of the Titan.) containing:
  • The wreck of the Titan
  • The Pirates
  • Beyond the Spectrum
  • In the Valley of the Shadow
• Down to the Sea, published 1905, Harper and Brothers, containing:
  • The Closing of the Circuit
  • A Cow, Two Men, and a Parson
  • The Rivals
  • A Chemical Comedy
  • A Hero Of The Cloth
  • The Subconscious Finnegan
  • The Torpedo
  • The Submarine
  • Fifty Fathoms Down
  • The Enemies
  • The Vitality of Dennis
  • The Helix
  • The Shark
  • The Mutiny
• The Grain Ship, anthology published 1914, McKinley, Stone and Mackenzie, NY, containing:
  • The Grain Ship
  • From the Darkness and the Depths
  • Noah's Ark
  • The Finishing Touch
  • The Rock
  • The Argonauts
  • The Married Man
  • The Triple Alliance
  • Shovels and Bricks
  • Extracts from Noah's Logs
• Three Laws and the Golden Rule containing:
  • The Three Laws and the Golden Rule
  • The Americans
  • Dignity
  • The Honeymoon Ship
  • The Third Mate
  • Through the Deadlight
  • The Hairy Devil
  • The Slumber of a Soul
  • Honor Among Thieves
  • The Survival of the Fittest
  • A Creature of Circumstance

References in media and popular culture

Episode 17 (segment "Titan") of the American television show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction tells the story of Robertson (Harris Fisher) writing Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan/Futility.

External links

• "Periscope Inventor Dead", Renfrew Mercury, Friday, April 2, 1915, p. 7
• Titanic – Futility by Morgan Robertson
• Wreck of The Titan/Futility by Morgan Robertson
• Primordial, and Three Laws and the Golden Rule by Morgan Robertson

Online books

• Works by Morgan Robertson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Morgan Robertson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Read Books Online Website
• Online Library (many original scans of Robertson's work)