Read the passage from the foreword of a book. In 1898 a struggling author named Morgan Robertson concocted a novel about a fabulous Atlantic liner, far larger than any that had ever been built. Robertson loaded his ship with rich and complacent people and then wrecked it one cold April night on an iceberg. The book was called Futility.

Fourteen years later a British shipping company named the White Star Line built a steamer remarkably like the one in Robertson’s novel. The new liner was 66,000 tons displacement; Robertson’s was 70,000, The real ship was 882.5 feet long; the fictional one was 800 feet. Both vessels were triple screw and could make 24–25 knots. Both could carry about 3000 people, and both had enough life boats for only a fraction of this number. But, then, this didn’t seem to matter because both were labeled "unsinkable.”

Robertson called his ship the Titan; the White Star Line called its ship the Titanic.

–A Night to Remember,
Walter Lord

How is the author using his foreword to inspire reader interest in a historical event?