Shadow of the Titanic (eBook)

The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived

Andrew Wilson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2011 | 1. Auflage
400 Seiten
Simon & Schuster UK (Verlag)
978-1-84737-732-6 (ISBN)

Infos

In the early hours of 15 April 1912, after the majestic liner Titanic had split apart and the 1,500 men, women and children struggled to stay alive in the freezing Atlantic, the sea was alive with the sound of screaming. Then, as the ship sank to the ocean floor and the passengers slowly died from hypothermia, a deathly silence settled over the sea. Yet the echoes of that night reverberated through the lives of each of the 705 survivors. SURVIVING THE TITANIC tells the extraordinary stories of some of those who survived.
Although we think we know the story of the Titanic - the famously unsinkable ship that hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Britain to America in April 1912 - little has been written about what happened to the survivors after the tragedy. How did the loss of the ship shape the lives of the people who survived? How did those who were saved feel about those who perished? And how did they remember that terrible night, in effect a disaster that has been likened to the destruction of a small town?
Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking, SURVIVING THE TITANIC will shed new light on this enduringly fascinating story by showing how the disaster continued to shape the lives of a cross-section of passengers who escaped the sinking ship.

Textauszug

One

A FANCY-DRESS BALL IN
DANTE's HELL

Sunday, April 14, 1912, dawned bright and clear. There was a feeling of optimism in the air, a sense that anything was possible. The ship seemed to glide over a sea of glass. For first-class passenger Colonel Archibald Gracie, the RMS Titanic was a 'floating palace,'1 a high-class hotel that cut through the waters of the Atlantic with a majesty and power he had never experienced before. As he stood on the first-class deck, he noticed that the sea was so level he could barely make out a ripple.

Since Wednesday, when the ship had departed Southampton on its maiden voyage to New York, Gracie had taken advantage of every luxury. After all, this was a liner that had cost $7.5 million to build, a ship that carried 800 bundles of asparagus, one and a quarter tons of fresh green peas, 36,000 oranges and 16,000 lemons, 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, 11,000 pounds of fresh fish, 4,000 pounds of bacon and ham, 7,500 pounds of game and poultry, 1,000 sweetbreads, 40,000 sausages, 40,000 fresh eggs, 6,000 pounds of fresh butter, not to mention the 1,500 bottles of wine, the 20,000 bottles of beer and stout, or the 850 bottles of spirits. For the gentlemen on board there were 8,000 cigars, which they could enjoy while discussing the news of the day.

It's not surprising then that on that Sunday morning, after a few days of self-indulgence, Colonel Gracie felt he should take a spot of exercise. He rose early, before breakfast, and played a half-hour game of squash with Fred Wright, the professional racket instructor, followed by a swim in the heated saltwater swimming pool. The exercise refreshed his body and his spirit, erasing, for a few moments at least, a slight uneasiness that hung over him. 'The pleasure and comfort which all of us enjoyed ... seemed an ominous feature to many of us, including myself,' he said, 'who felt it almost too good to last without some terrible retribution inflicted by the hand of an angry omnipotence.'2

Lady Duff Gordon--the London-based couturier known as 'Lucile'--remembers how extraordinary it was to see and taste strawberries in April in mid-ocean, while another first-class passenger, Marjorie Newell Robb, was still able to recall in 1981, at the age of ninety-two, the feel of 'carpets that you could sink in up to your knees,' the 'fine furniture that you could barely move,' and the 'very fine panelling and carving.'3 Many second-class passengers spent their time riding between floors in the elevator, which was described as 'a great new attraction on the boat.'4 The tang of novelty hung in the air--in fact, one could even smell it. In a letter second-class passenger Marion Wright wrote to her father from the ship on April 11, she said, 'It is lovely on the water, except for the smell of new paint, everything is very comfortable on board.'5

For thirteen-year-old Madeleine Mellenger (later Mann) the ship was nothing short of a floating miracle. She was traveling with her mother, Elizabeth Anne, in second class to make a new life for themselves in America. Her father, Claude Alexander Mellenger, a London journalist, had brought the family to the point of ruin through years of what she later described as 'his extravagance and high living.' After Mellenger finally deserted them, Elizabeth was forced to take a position as a lady's maid and traveling companion with the wealthy Colgate family of America. For Madeleine, the Titanic became a...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.10.2011
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte
• ISBN-10: 1-84737-732-7 / 1847377327
• ISBN-13: 978-1-84737-732-6 / 9781847377326