Interweaves the personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research and featuring 100 rare photographs, the author accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement, presenting the very latest thinking on everything from when and how the lifeboats were loaded to the last tune of the orchestra, to a convincing evocation of the table talk at the famous Widener dinner party held in the Ritz Restaurant on the last night. Millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, writer Helen Churchill Candee, movie actress Dorothy Gibson, and a host of other travelers on this fateful crossing are also vividly brought to life. 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.
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