Background
Morgan Andrew Robertson was born on 30. 09. 1861 in New York, United States. His father was a ship-captain on the Great Lakes.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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(This collection of four sea stories by American author Mo...)
This collection of four sea stories by American author Morgan Robertson includes his most famous work —The Wreck of the Titan, or Futility — a tale of an "unsinkable" ship's deadly collision with an iceberg, written 14 years before the real-life Titanic disaster. Other stories in this collection include: a Navy officer's struggle with deserters who have commandeered his vessel; the opening battles of a U.S.-Japanese war in the Pacific with a terrifying new weapon; and a gripping escape from a sabotaged submarine.
https://www.amazon.com/Wreck-Titan-Futility-Morgan-Robertson/dp/1519682484?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1519682484
Morgan Andrew Robertson was born on 30. 09. 1861 in New York, United States. His father was a ship-captain on the Great Lakes.
After a public-school education, Morgan went to sea in the merchant service, 1877-86, attaining the rank of first mate.
He then gave up seafaring, and went to New York, where he studied the jeweler's trade at Cooper Union and opened a small shop, specializing in diamond setting.
Morgan went to sea in the merchant service, 1877-86, attaining the rank of first mate. He then gave up seafaring, and went to New York, where he studied the jeweler's trade at Cooper Union and opened a small shop, specializing in diamond setting. On May 27, 1894, he married Alice M. Doyle. Two years later, impaired eyesight forced him to give up his business and he was soon financially embarrassed. The reading of a sea story by Kipling now determined him to capitalize his own sea experiences and he spent a night writing an 8000-word story on the backs of circulars he had been hired to distribute. For this story, "The Destruction of the Unfit, " finally accepted by a magazine, he received twenty-five dollars. The following year he wrote some twenty stories, the cream of his work, thus earning about a thousand dollars. For one story an editor traded a bicycle, Robertson's choice of the merchandise advertised in the magazine. Writing steadily, however, he produced more than two hundred stories, which appeared in leading American magazines and in English periodicals. After the publication of a collection of his stories in book form he was paid more for his work and in time enjoyed a fairly comfortable income, although he never earned as much as $5000 a year. His education being limited, he found writing painfully tedious, and eventually his ideas grew scarce. Threatened with a nervous breakdown and fearing insanity, he voluntarily entered the psychopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital. A psychologist whom he later consulted turned his mind to invention, and he undertook, after visiting a submarine, to solve the problem of the periscope; this he accomplished practically, but he could not patent his device because a fantastic description embodying the same principle had previously appeared in a French magazine. Returning to his writing, he found, as he said, that "my punch was gone" ("Gathering No Moss, " p. 32); his work gradually declined in sales value, and he became practically penniless. Robertson's published books include: A Tale of a Halo (1894), an unusual allegorical poem; Spun-Yarn: Sea Stories (1898), "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Tales of the Sea (1899), Shipmates (1901), Down to the Sea (1905), and Land-Ho! (1905), all collections of short stories; Futility (1898), a short novel; Masters of Men: A Romance of the New Navy (1901); and Sinful Peck (1903), another full-length novel. His stories deal with sailing ships, steam vessels, and the long, steel men-of-war. They treat of mutiny and bloody fights, shipwreck and rescue, brutality, shanghaiing, courage and wild daring, telepathy, hypnotism, dual personality, and extraordinary inventions. "His stories are bully, " wrote Booth Tarkington, "his sea is foamy, and his men have hair on their chests" (McClure's Magazine, October 1915, p. 90). He gave life and reality to his characters, the most famous being Finnegan, a sort of Mulvaney of the sea, but he was more concerned with the reality of adventurous action than the psychological aspects of the sailor like Conrad, who wrote to Robertson : "Indeed, my dear sir, you are a first rate seaman--one can see that with half-an-eye. "
(This collection of four sea stories by American author Mo...)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
Quotes from others about the person
He was never a spendthrift, he declared ("Gathering No Moss, " post, p. 28), but he was improvident and a poor business man and was never entirely free from financial worries.
On May 27, 1894, he married Alice M. Doyle, daughter of William and Anna (Ross) Doyle of New York.
A few months before his death, of heart disease, in an Atlantic City hotel, he was given financial relief by the publication of a special edition of his works, sponsored by friends. He had no children, but was survived by his wife, a brother, and a sister.