Titanic Survivor [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Violet Jessop (Author), John Maxtone-Graham (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 1998

After a childhood in Argentina and formative years in England, Violet Jessop spent her entire career at sea. She was a stewardess for first-class passengers on the Titanic and she wrote an absolutley unique eyewitness account on the ost written about disaster of our time. Four years later, Violet was a nurse onboard the hospital ship BRitannic when it struck a mine and sank to the bottom of the Aegean. But Titanic Survivor is much more. A unique autobiography for those who want to know how it really felt, a story that could be told only by a Titanic Survivor.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The photos in Violet Jessop's moving memoir reveal her to have been still lovelier than Titanic star Kate Winslet, but that only made her job harder as a stewardess aboard the ship. As reported by John Maxtone-Graham, Jessop's beauty no doubt increased her troubles with the "philandering captains and pursers, loquacious or insufferable fellow stewardesses, and an array of sometimes horrifying passengers."

But Jessop had no problem dishing the dirt on all aboard, the liveliest being her fellow steward Tim Nolan. "He had the appearance of a venerable archdeacon, the contrariness of the Irish, the rosy face of a child, and the soul of a vagabond," she reports. "It would take a mathematician to keep count of the resolutions made and broken by Tim to refrain from 'a drop of cheer' during one Atlantic crossing." Nolan had to stash his drops of cheer in rich folks' cabins, once being forced to hide under an occupied bed all day in a scene worthy of the Marx brothers. "Sure, wasn't I afraid I was going to sneeze every time I took a breath? It's me that'll be sober from now on," vowed Nolan.

Nolan's encounter with a stuffed mermaid and a flesh-and-blood circus freak named the Bear Woman really freaked him out. "It took several people to convince Tim he was not still 'under the influence' and 'seeing things,'" Jessop writes. "The combination of the mermaid (he could not forget her placid expression and dainty arms) and the Bear Woman did a lot towards keeping Tim on the water wagon."

Jessop's account of her last conversation with another colleague, Stan, who saved her life by ordering her to hustle up to the lifeboat that his sex disqualified him from boarding, is touching. They argued about her clothes. "I said as he brought forth my new spring outfit, all trimmings and things," writes Jessop, "'That's no rig for a shipwreck, all fussed up and gay.' Suddenly, I was trying to be jocular, afraid I might cry ... 'So long, Stan. Come up yourself soon, won't you?' He was standing with his arm clasped behind him in the corner ... He suddenly looked very tired. Good old, ugly-faced, big-hearted Stanley!"

Good old, pretty-faced, big-hearted Violet. It's a good thing you wrote it all down. --Tim Appelo

From Booklist

In commemoration of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, many books on the subject are being published, but few can match this survivor's firsthand account in imparting a sense of immediacy. Jessop was born in 1887 in Argentina of Irish parents. As a girl, she went to live in England; as a young woman, she "went to sea" (in 1908) as an ocean-liner stewardess. Not only did she serve on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, but after surviving the horror of that tragedy, she was serving on the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, when, during World War I, it hit a mine in the Aegean Sea and sank. Jessop reentered service after the war and died in 1971, leaving behind this manuscript, which has been informatively annotated by editor John Maxtone-Graham. Readers of this absorbing account of her untrammeled life will agree that "ostensibly unsinkable in life, she has proved positively unsinkable posthumously." An important contribution to the growing body of Titanic literature. Brad Hooper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Sheridan House (July 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574090356
• ISBN-13: 978-1574090352
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Life....in an Unexpected Way, October 5, 2000

By 

"kingsransom" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Titanic Survivor (Hardcover)

Violet Jessop went to sea as a stewardess on an ocean liner in 1908. She continued as a stewardess through the glory days when a transatlantic ship crossing was as much a society event as a mode of transportation. She retired at age 63 in 1950, long after traveling by ship had ceased to be chic. During her career Violet Jessop lived through three ocean disasters:

1. the September 1911 collision of HMS Hawke with Olympic,

2. the sinking of Titanic in 1912, and

3. the sinking of the hospital ship Britannic during World War I.

But the reader who picks up this book expecting a gripping first-person account of the sinking of Titanic will be disappointed. Jessop treats that experience in a mere two or three pages. She dismisses the sinking of Britannic in a couple of pages and doesn't even mention the collision between Hawke and Olympic.

From our current historical perspective, it's easy to judge that the most important event in Violet Jessop's life was her presence on board Titanic. But for Violet the best part of her life was her early childhood, before her father's death, in South America. Her book tells in lovingly remembered detail of her days on the Pampas before her father's illness and early death sent the family back to England and into financial need. Violet went into service on a ship not because of the glamour of the work, but because it was a job that required little education.

Violet, who lived from 1887 to 1971, completed this manuscript in 1934, probably for some contest that she apparently did not win. Her nieces discovered the manuscript after her death and submitted it to Sheridan House for publication in 1996.

This woman who is the subject of this book should not be judged for when and where she happened to be in history, but the kind of life she led.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Could NOT Put This Book Down!!, January 5, 2003

By 

Karen Colton Welles "Karen W" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Titanic Survivor (Hardcover)

I know that many people will buy this book for the fact alone that Miss Jessop survived the Titanic sinking. That episode, however, represents only a tiny fraction of the entire tapestry of her life, and it is that "saga", recounted here with invaluable editing and background information, that is truly riveting.

Prior to reading this book, I was familiar with Miss Jessop's White Star collision and sinking experiences onboard the Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic, but had NO idea of the rest of her work, background or personality.

What a life! And when you finish reading this, you will be hoping that there are more memoirs hidden somewhere! I did a marathon read of this book, not being able to stop until I finished.

This book is truly a winner! I am so thankful that it has been published.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A working woman's life, January 13, 2000

By 

microfiche (Scarborough, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Titanic Survivor (Hardcover)

I read this book from cover to cover in one sitting. Violet Jessop survived near fatal illnesses in childhood, the loss of her father in adolecence (which meant that her mother had to work on the ships to provide a scanty income and leaving Violet as the "mother" to her siblings), and two shipwrecks. Mr. Maxtone-Graham wisely let Miss Jessop tell her story in her own words. I could almost hear the lilt in her voice.

Unfortunately, Miss Jessop wrote little of the details of her shipboard duties, of her passengers, or of the Titanic and Brittanic sinkings. What she did write is priceless and naturally she would not want to dwell on painful memories of her passengers and shipmates cries for help; but I wish she had wrote more than she did. What was her daily routine? Did she clean the toilets as well as make the beds? Did the stewards have a duty room where they gathered for orders or to polish brass and shine shoes while waiting for the passengers bells? Did she act as lady's maid and if the passengers had their own servants, how did they split the work? What were her duties as a VAD nurse? What differences did she find between Olympic/Titanic as luxury liners and their sister Brittanic as a hospital ship? What was Mary Pickford like as a passenger (her photo is in the book)? What made up her uniform's 12 parts? How did she inform her family of her survival? Did she have to stay with the other crew awaiting the American Senate inquiry? If so, how did they live? Mr. Maxtone-Graham could have interviewed other steward(esse)s and people who knew Miss Jessop to write more background details that would've fleshed out her narrative. Miss Jessop was very discreet about the identities of people on paper; but she might've been more candid when describing them to her friends and family. This is a good book to read once and donate to the public library, since it is a record of a woman's work in the Edwardian era and one person's recollection of the Titanic disaster and so would be useful for study. But if you want to drench yourself in Titanic lore, the book's not for you.