Titanic

Although he survived the sinking by seven months, it was the Titanic that killed Colonel Archibald Gracie. His struggles in the icy waters of the North Atlantic had shattered his constitution, and the awful things he had seen on that fateful night left him a haunted man. One observer said he had the look of someone “who had descended as distinctly into hell as any human being would care to acknowledge, and had risen again from the dead.” Nevertheless he tried to make sense of his experiences, and this book was published soon after his death. The first half is his own account of the sinking, and shows how he had to be both lucky and strong just to live through the night. In the second half he tells the individual stories of each of the Titanic’s lifeboats, summarizing the bare facts and then providing dramatic survivor accounts, from personal interviews and from testimony given to the British and American inquiries into the disaster. In its author’s desperate search for the truth, this book remains one of the most powerful works on the sinking of the Titanic.

One of the first books published after the tragic loss of the Titanic, The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters is a detailed account of the events the night of April 14-15, 1912, and how the tragic loss of life could have been averted. The largest ocean liner of her time, Titanic was on her maiden voyage when she struck an iceberg and sank in the frigid North Atlantic, taking more than 1,500 passengers and crew with her. The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters is a valuable report of the disaster and a must-read for anyone interested in Titanic lore.

The sinking of the Titanic in the north Atlantic in the early hours of April 15, 1912 is arguably the most famous peacetime maritime disaster of modern history, and one that continues to capture popular imagination a century later.

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Lawrence Beesley was one of the luckiest men on the Titanic. Although the word had been given, “women and children first,” he was nevertheless ordered into a lifeboat to make up the numbers. At the end of that fateful night he stepped, dry and physically unharmed, onto the deck of the rescuing ship Carpathia. We are also fortunate in that, as a science teacher, Beesley was an intensely curious man. During the journey he had been paying careful attention to every aspect of shipboard life, from how seagulls were able to keep pace with the liner, to why the vibrations from the great engines were most noticeable when taking a bath. He put these observational skills to good use in his description of the sinking, and of how the passengers, the crew, and later the public reacted, providing us one of the most complete and thoughtful eyewitness accounts of the disaster.

This ebook edition features:
 • 5 photographs and illustrations from the first edition
 • Active table of contents and reflowable text
 • Part of the Titanic Landmark Series – republishing eyewitness accounts of the Titanic

Table of Contents:
 • I. Construction and Preparations for the First Voyage
 • II. From Southampton to the Night of the Collision
 • III. The Collision and Embarkation in Lifeboats
 • IV. The Sinking of the Titanic, seen from a Lifeboat
 • V. The Rescue
 • VI. The Sinking of the Titanic, seen from her Deck
 • VII. The Carpathia’s Return to New York
 • VIII. The Lessons taught by the Loss of the Titanic
 • IX. Some Impressions

• Theories behind the reason for the sinking (does the blame lie with the watertight doors, bad rivets, or crew negligence?), and when and where the ship split in two.
• A detailed look at how the lack of lifeboats — and the chaos that resulted in lifeboats launching before they reached capacity — resulted in lives lost.
• A Titanic “Who’s Who” identifying notable passengers, including those who were famous before the tragedy and those who gained fame because of it.
• Current thinking about reports of shots being fired onboard, the details of Captain Smith’s death, Murdoch’s possible suicide, and the band’s last song.
• Findings from the Titanic hearings on both sides of the Atlantic.
• A recounting of Robert Ballard’s discovery of the wreck in 1985 and the ongoing debate over whether to salvage the wreck or let the ship remain as a memorial to those who perished.
• A glimpse of the most fascinating artifacts salvaged from the wreckage.
• The Titanic in pop culture: from Broadway to one of the most highest grossing movies in history (being re-released in 3D in 2012 to commemorate the 100th anniversary).