Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors - 1960

Front Cover of The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors. GGA Image ID # 104cbfddf6

Excerpt from the Preface

What really happened on board the Titanic on the morning of April 15, 1912? Why did a ship that responsible naval architects and builders proclaimed unsinkable sink so easily and so rapidly? Is it true that the captain was drunk?

Was the White Star Line trying to establish a speed record through waters that were known to be studded with icebergs? Did the band really play “Nearer My God to Thee” as the ship towered on end for its plunge into the sea?

Was the crew heroic, or did hordes of panic-stricken stewards pile into the lifeboats and have to be rowed away from the ship by women? Did an American millionaire try to buy his way into one of the boats, and did another
disguise himself as a woman to escape?

Why did the California stand some four miles away, watching distress signals, yet make no move to save the fifteen hundred men, women, and children?

Draw your own conclusions from the documents presented in this book. Here, in this reader about the Titanic, are reprinted for the first time all of the most significant accounts by survivors of the great ship's destruction: the full text of Beesley’s book

The Loss of the S. S. Titanic, Colonel Gracie's book The Truth about the Titanic, and the narratives of Second Officer Lightoller and Assistant Radio Operator Bride.

The Loss of the S. S. Titanic, Its Story and Its Lessons, t>y Lawrence Beesley, appeared in 1912. The first major analysis of the disaster, it not only relates Beesley’s experiences during the foundering and in his lifeboat but also presents the most thorough non-technical account of the structural defects of the vessel.

Its author, Lawrence Beesley, was a young science master from a British public school, on his way to the United States for a vacation.

From the Back Cover

The story of the TITANIC as told by its survivors

Edited by Jack Winocour

Why does the sinking of the Titanic hold such fascination for us? Many reasons have been advanced for the continuing fascination of this epic tragedy, but none, we think, can contribute as much to an understanding of it as the four accounts collected in this volume.

All four authors were survivors, and each presents the catastrophe from his own viewpoint; the icy waters, the cries of the drowning, the confusion and the heroism, are given an intensely personal immediacy.

This volume contains, complete and unabridged, “The Loss of the S.S. Titanic,” by Lawrence Beesley, and “The Truth about the Titanic,” by Col. Archibald Gracie. Both are full-length books published soon after the disaster. Each has become extremely rare today.

The third story in this volume, “Titanic,” was written by the only officer to survive the catastrophe, Commander Lightoller. It includes the story of the “whitewashing” inquiries into the Titanic’s safety measures.

The last section is a dramatic tale by the Titanic’s surviving wireless operator, Harold Bride.

Introduction. 28 illustrations. 352pp. 5 1/2 x 8. Paperbound.

ISBN 0-486-20610-6

$7.95 IN USA

Illustrations on the front and back cover are from the movie A NIGHT TO REMEMBER and are reproduced through the courtesy of Lopert films.

Contents

• Preface to Dover Edition
• The Loss of the S. S. Titanic, its Story and its Lessons
  by Lawrence Beesley
• The Truth about the Titanic
  by Colonel Archibald Gracie
• Titanic
  by Commander Lightoller
• Thrilling Tale by Titanic's Surviving Wireless Man
  by Harold Bride

List of Illustrations

1. The Titanic leaves Southampton
2. The Titanic narrowly escapes collision
3. Main staircase and entrance hall
4. The Titanic: (1) longitudinal section, (2) tank top, (3) boat deck
5. The Titanic: (4) transverse section (amidship)
6. First-class bedroom suite
7. First-class lounge
8. Double-cylinder watertight doors
9. Welin davits with lifeboats
10. The gymnasium
11. First-class smoking room
12. Boilers for the Titanic
13. Third-class dining room
14. The overturned Engelhardt boat “B”
15. Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus
16. The Titanic’s commander and officers
17. Four decks of the Olympic
18. Colonel Archibald Gracie
19. Officer Lowe towing the canvas collapsible (above), and the canvas collapsible (below)
20. The Carpathia
21. Captain Rostron of the Carpathia
22. Propeller brackets
23. The Titanic and Olympic on the stocks
24. A funnel of the Olympic
25. Mr. J. Bruce Ismay

Back Cover of The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors. GGA Image ID # 104d8676df

This Dover edition, first published in 1960, contains the following:

The Loss of the .S’. S. Titanic, by Lawrence Beesley in unabridged, unaltered republication as originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1912.

The Truth about the Titanic, by Archibald Gracie in unabridged, unaltered republication as originally published by Mitchell Kennerley in 1913.

Titanic and Other Ships, by Commander Lightoller. The author's chapters on the Titanic (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35) have been selected and are given in unabridged, unaltered republication. The original book was published by Ivor Nicholson and Watson in 1935.

Thrilling Tale by Titanic’s Surviving Wireless Man. An unbridged, unaltered reprinting of Harold Bride’s account as reproduced in the New York Times of April 28, 1912.

Illustrations have been selected from the above books and from the Souvenir Number of The Shipbuilder for June, 1911.

Library of Congress Catalog Listing

• Personal name: Winocour, Jack, ed.
• Main title: The story of the Titanic, as told by its survivors.
• Published/Created: New York, Dover [1960]
• Description: 320 p. illus. 21 cm.
• LC classification: G530.T6 W57
• Contents: The loss of the S.S. Titanic, its story and its lessons, by L. Beesley.-The truth about the Titanic, by A. Gracie.-Titanic, by Commander Lightoller.-The thrilling tale, by H. Bride.
• LC Subjects: Titanic (Steamship)
  LCCN: 60001462
  Dewey class no.: 910.453
  National bib no.: GB61-21653
  Type of material: Book