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

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 and featuring 100 rarely seen photographs, 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?"

Author: Hugh Brewster
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Published: 03/26/2013
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 7.94h x 5.42w x 0.97d
ISBN13: 9780307984814
ISBN10: 0307984818
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Rich & Famous
- Transportation | Ships & Shipbuilding | History

About the Author
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.