Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy

Originally written in 1986 in anticipation of the 75th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy was issued in a second edition in 1994, after the authors got a chance to explore the wreckage. They added some haunting color photographs and extra text in which they muse on the emotional impact of what they call the "artefacts" retrieved: an ivory hairbrush with hair caught in its bristles, a legible newspaper, and a business card with a phone number scribbled in pencil on the back. In its boxy photographic layout and sober prose, the book feels like a historic artifact itself. The authors scrupulously avoid any trace of modern hype, letting the quietly stated facts speak for themselves: the ship was the largest moving manmade object of its day; on the proud clock in the grand first-class entryway, the allegorical figure of Time was flanked by Honour and Glory; one intrepid old lady saved fellow passengers by locating them in the waves with the flashlight built into her cane. "With more than 1500 still on board," the authors write, "and just 47 available spaces in collapsible [lifeboat] D, [Officer] Lightoller instructs the crew to lock arms and form a circle around the boat. Only women and children are permitted to pass through that circle." This book gives a sense of what it might have been like to enter that circle--or be excluded.