The Titanic: Disaster of a Century

By Wyn Craig Wade, Barbara Wade and John Chatterton

The centennial edition of this definitive book reveals new findings, photos, and interviews that shed light on the world’s most famous marine disaster.
 
On the fatal night of April 15, 1912, the world’s largest moving object collided with an iceberg and disappeared beneath the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean in less than three hours. More than fifteen hundred people on the ship perished, making it one of the deadliest peacetime marine disasters in modern history.
 
But why was the ship sailing through waters well known to be a “mass of floating ice”? Why were there too few lifeboats? Why did crew members make up a full third of the survivors?
 
Based on eyewitness accounts, the sensational evidence of the US Senate hearings that followed the disaster, and the results of the 1985 Woods Hole expedition that photographed the ship, this evocative account recreates the vessel’s last desperate hours afloat and fully addresses the questions that continue to haunt the tragedy of the RMS Titanic.
 
“Riveting.” —Associated Press
 
“A rousing adjunct to Walter Lord’s social history of the sinking, and thorough-going on the causes as far as they can be determined.” —Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781620872987

Reviews for The Titanic

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel was a pleasure to read. Not that I can't find fault. Margaret of Ashbury, the wife of a rich merchant, hires a clerk to dictate her memoirs in the year 1355. The narrative switches between the present day and her experiences with her amanuensis, Brother Gregory in third person, and her own story told by her first person. Whenever we hear her own story in her own voice, I found the story absolutely engrossing. I was less taken at first with the third person parts, more than anything because within it, without the restraint of first person, Riley can't hold point of view, sometimes hopping heads within a paragraph. Yet I forgive what I often find a deal breaker, because the story of Brother Gregory and his interaction with the unorthodox Margaret is so compelling in its own right and compliments the story she's telling; it illuminates the misogyny of the day, especially among the religious, who don't see women as capable of reason or whose only possible virtue is obedience. The story is told with wonderful period detail bringing 14th Century England--the period of the Black Plague and its aftermath to life--lives high and low, from the nobility of the castle to rich merchants, clergy, even robber bands and traveling minstrels. And there's a winning humor lacing the entire tale throughout. There's also a thread of the fantastical that tempts me to tag this as fantasy--as Margaret has a "vision of light" and afterwards develops powers of healing. But then that could be seen as not out of place in a century that produced such mystics as Birgitta of Sweden, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and particularly Margery Kempe. Kempe dictated to scribes what is considered the first autobiography in the English language and her life has several points in common with the story of Margaret of Ashbury. I feel mixed about the ending. Part of me wishes it has ended when Margaret put a "finis" on her memoirs--though it does end on a good note for further books in the series--I saw two more on the bookstore shelf. After this first book, I'll certainly be picking more up someday.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really good historical account.