Customer Reviews

Sinking of the Titanic: Eyewitness Accounts (Dover Maritime)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This reproduction of a contemporary publication is an interesting artifact that illustrates the exploitation of the Titanic disaster by the press at this time. It also demonstrates how much of the mythology about the Titanic got started. If you want to learn as much about the truth as can be learned about happened that night the transcripts of the American and British hearings are far superior as are the better organized and accurate accounts by survivors including Mr. Beesley, second cabin passenger and Col. Gracie, first cabin passenger.

I'm glad that Dover publishes these replica editions, because it would be nearly impossible to find this material elsewhere. These accounts, straight from the survivors, are important to those of us that study the Titanic, and should be shared with the public at large.

Published only months after the Titanic disaster, this is a collection of accounts of the tragedy. Although the book contains much hearsay and inaccuracies for sensationalization, reading the stories from the lips of the survivors and witnesses is moving and meaningful. The accounts are infused with the feeling of the times, with both melodramatic sentimentality and the thoroughly offensive racism, sexism, and classism. Despite all of this, the book is an intriguing perspective on the Titanic, fully capturing the psychology and sociology of the times, in its reaction to the disaster and also reflecting what caused it to be. Grade: B+

Great glimpse into the attitudes of the time...even the typeface, factual errors and misspellings add to the dramatic documentation of the stunned and outraged reactions to the sinking of the great RMS TITANIC. Will be especially enjoyed by TITANIC scholars and enthusiastis who now know the "real" story of her sinking...these personal, tragic tales will greatly enhances anyone's technical knowledge and interest in that Night to Remember!

I know personally the facts written in this book are absolute and correct as one survivor was frank goldsmith Jr with his mother Emily. Frank was 9 years old living untill 1979. As frank attested in 1972 while telling my wife and myself the entire story said then that the ship broke in to. the proof was robert ballard's discovery. events in this book frank told me years ago had happened. he said the screams of dying is the same sound you hear in basebsll parks when a home run is hit. I highly recommend this book to all at any price.

I studied Titanic all my life and I know pretty much every detail. However when I read this book I found inaccuracies that just cant be ignored. It says that there was a "brilliant moon" out but there was no moon. This book also gives the wrong name to the person at the wheel at the time of the disaster. As is mentioned in other reviews, its very repetitve as well. However the cover picture, inside pictures and the survivor accounts are very interesting. (but misquotes dominate)

I have been on a Titanic kick recently. Every five years or so, I become obsessed anew with the Titanic disaster and I re-read all of my Titanic books. This one is an unabashedly sensationalistic collection of first-person accounts by surviving passengers and crew- members of the Titanic, as well as stories from those who were aboard the rescue ship, the Carpathia. The book even throws in a few drama-infused tales narrated by those who merely heard about the disaster second-hand. Originally published in 1912, just months after the sinking of the ship, the book promises -- and delivers -- "graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves," "accounts of heart-rending scenes, when hundreds were doomed to watery graves," and "soul-stirring stories told by eye witnesses of this terrible horror of the briny deep." The book's dramatic subtitles are a reminder of the extent to which the Titanic disaster became the morality play of its day as well as juicy tabloid fodder: "Hopes Sink Beneath the Cruel and Treacherous Waves of the Atlantic"; "Man's Proudest Craft Crumbles Like an Eggshell"; "Black Coward Shot."

There must have been tremendous pressure to get this book to press as early as possible because the man responsible for the compilation, Jay Henry Mowbray, supposed Ph.D., did the sloppiest editing job imaginable. There is no chronological order to the stories, for one thing: one minute, survivors are clinging to pieces of wreckage; the next minute, the story jumps back to the moment when the iceberg was first sighted. The eyewitness accounts are strung together more or less randomly. Sometimes, it is not clear when one person's story ends and another begins. At other times, the editor obscures the meaning of a survivor's statement by failing to create a new paragraph. For example, one Titanic survivor rescued by the Carpathia describes the night he spent sleeping on the floor of a stateroom aboard the Carpathia as "a terrible experience and one I never want to go through again." This doesn't make sense - how could sleeping on the floor of a posh oceanliner be worse than narrowly escaping death on the Titanic and then spending hours bobbing around in a lifeboat on the icy seas? - until the reader realizes that the man has changed the subject back to the sinking of the Titanic but the editor has failed to notice.

Despite its shortcomings, this book is very valuable in offering a glimpse into the world's reaction to the tragedy at the time when it was being played out. It also provides insight into the values and biases of the period. For example, reading these accounts one starts to get the impression that the only male passengers on the Titanic were seven first-class gentlemen - John Jacob Astor, Colonel Archibald Gracie, Major Archibald Butt, young John "Jack" Thayer, George D. Widener, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Mr. Isidor Straus -- and the pusillanimous Bruce Ismay, manager director of the White Star Line, who came under sharp criticism for saving himself by jumping into a lifeboat. There is mention, of course, of the hundreds of "cowardly," "panicking" male steerage passengers who kept trying to swarm the lifeboats (they inevitably are described as Italians or Chinamen), but every account seems to focus upon the heroism of this handful of first-class passengers, even when the heroism isn't particularly impressive. After a while, the survivor accounts become monotonous and repetitive because every survivor is reciting the same litany: "Colonol Gracie said this...Major Butt did this...Colonel Aster did this." Every movement these men made, every word they uttered, was recounted over and over again. Colonel Astor received lavish praise from nearly every survivor for not arguing when his request to get into a lifeboat was refused. For this, he was hailed as a hero the world over. I'm not trying to minimize his bravery in resigning himself to his fate, but hundreds of men faced death aboard the Titanic with equal or greater stoicism (in fact, it sounds as though other men who asked if they could get into a lifeboat that night were branded cowards; some had guns pointed in their faces by the crew-men in charge of loading the boats), so it struck me as odd that Astor's "heroism" was cited time and time again. It took a while for me to really grasp the fact that extraordinarily wealthy people such as these first-class passengers were the celebrities of their day. Their moves were followed by everyone, in death as in life, so it makes sense that they were lionized and their last moments vividly remembered by the other passengers. Even in the lifeboats, all eyes were on the celebrities.

This book has many flaws, but nonetheless it is a must-read for anyone interested in the Titanic disaster. I also recommend Logan Marshall's 1912 narrative, "The Sinking of the Titanic."

I love anything Titanic. To hear what the survivors witness was excellent. I had always wondered about the other side of the coin. This book was excellent to find out those answers. It is amazing at how each witness viewed the same event. I can't imagine surviving or being in a situation as such. I loved this book.

I was really looking forward to reading this book but got bored within the first two chapters. It is repetitive, over and over the same thing. Don't waste your money.

please add to my former review--_frank goldsmith was in the same life boat with J. Bruce Ismay.