Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, Hugh Brewster
Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, Hugh Brewster
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World

Author: Hugh Brewster

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 10 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/18/2018


Synopsis

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage takes us behind the paneled doors of the Titanic's elegant private suites to present compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers.

The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era," but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing.

Employing scrupulous research, he accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers: millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim; President Taft's closest aide, Major Archibald Butt; writer Helen Churchill Candee; the artist Frank Millet; movie actress Dorothy Gibson; the celebrated couturiere Lady Duff Gordon; aristocrat Noelle, the Countess of Rothes; and a host of other travelers. Through them, we gain insight into the arts, politics, culture, and sexual mores of a world both distant and near to our own. And with them, we gather on the Titanic's sloping deck on that cold, starlit night and observe their all-too-human reactions as the disaster unfolds. More than ever, we ask ourselves, "What would we have done?"

About Hugh Brewster

Hugh Brewster has twenty-five years of experience in creating books about the Titanic as an editor, publisher, and writer. He worked with Robert D. Ballard to produce the 1987 international bestseller The Discovery of the Titanic and oversaw the creation of Titanic: An Illustrated History, a book that provided inspiration for James Cameron's epic movie. Brewster is also the author of Inside the Titanic, 882 1/2 Amazing Answers to All Your Questions About the Titanic, and Deadly Voyage and has written twelve award-winning books for young readers, including Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, which was chosen as one of the best books of 2007 by the Washington Post. He lives in Toronto.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mike

In February of 1912, twenty-four year old Alice Fortune had her palms read while vacationing in Egypt with her family. While gazing at her palms the fortune teller proclaimed, "You are in danger every time you travel on the sea, for I see you adrift on the ocean on an open boat. You will lose everyt......more

I appreciated the author's attempt to focus on one social level traveling aboard the Titanic but he seemed to have little idea of what to do with the story beyond the initial concept. I picked up Lives hoping to learn reams of details about Edwardian food, fashion, parties and travel. I wanted to lo......more