“An astonishing work.” —Julian Fellowes, Creator and Executive Producer of “Downton Abbey” “A book well worthy of marking the centenary of the crystal-clear night when the immense ship slid to her terrible doom.” —Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman It has been one hundred years since the sinking of the passenger liner Titanic in the North Atlantic, yet worldwide fascination with the epic tragedy remains as strong as ever. With Voyagers of the Titanic , Richard Davenport-Hines gives us a magnificent history of the people intimately connected with the infamous ship—from deal-makers and industry giants, like J.P. Morgan, who built and operated it; to Molly Brown, John Jacob Astor IV, and other glittering aristocrats who occupied its first class cabins; to the men and women traveling below decks hoping to find a better life in America. Commemorating the centennial anniversary of the great disaster, Voyagers of the Titanic offers a fascinating, uniquely original view of one of the most momentous catastrophes of the 20th century. As the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic nears, expect a rush of books and articles. As before, it is likely that many of them will inflate the historical importance of the disaster, imparting meaning where none exists. Hines, a biographer and journalist, pays the usual homage to these efforts by stressing the class divisions aboard ship and the illusions of technological supremacy shattered by the power of nature. He offers interesting explanations of the formation of icebergs, ship design, and the nature of transatlantic travel. His account rises above most others in his concentration upon those who died and those who survived what was, after all, a vast collection of individual human tragedies. He describes individuals from each of three designated classes of travel. Although we learn little new about the superrich in first class, Hines avoids taking cheap shots at them. The vignettes covering those in second and third class are especially moving, as Hines stresses the hopes of many to begin a new life in America. This is a well-done and creative retelling of a still-riveting story. --Jay Freeman “Here at last is the true memorial ... a book well worthy of marking the centenary of the crystal-clear night when the immense ship slid to her terrible doom” - Simon Winchester “An astonishing work, of meticulous research, which allows us to know, in painful detail, the men and women on that fateful voyage. Even now, a hundred years later, Mr. Davenport-Hines finds a new, and heart-breaking, story to tell.” - Julian Fellowes, Creator and Executive Producer of "Downton Abbey" “A shattering human story that is also, when told as well as Davenport-Hines tells it, utterly compelling.” - Sunday Times (UK), lead review “Eloquent and absorbing… It will stay afloat long after the armada of other Titanic books have gone down.” - The Telegraph (UK) “This will not be the last book on the Titanic, but it is a safe bet that there will not be a better.” - The Spectator (UK), lead review “Paints a provocative portrait of the “upstairs, downstairs” social stratification in play aboard the doomed ship. A-” - Entertainment Weekly “Impressive in both its writing and reporting... It’s a romp. You don’t know who will be strolling down the deck next.” - USA Today “The story of the Titanic has been told many times; this one takes a sociological perspective, with the confident, graceful prose of fine fiction.” - Wall Street Journal “Meticulous... detailed account.” - Women's Wear Daily.com “This intelligent book focuses not on the ship so much as its passengers. Bolstered by photographs of the people who built, staffed, sailed on and survived the Titanic, Davenport-Hines finds a slew of new points of view from which to scan history.” - Denver Post Late in the night of April 14, 1912, the mighty Titanic , a passenger liner traveling from Southampton, England, to New York City, struck an iceberg four hundred miles south of Newfoundland. Its sinking over the next two and a half hours brought the ship—mythological in name and size—one hundred years of infamy. Of the 2,240 people aboard the ship, 1,517 perished either by drowning or by freezing to death in the frigid North Atlantic waters. What followed the disaster was tantamount to a worldwide outpouring of grief: In New York, Paris, London, and other major cities, people lined the streets and crowded around the offices of the White Star Line, the Titanic ’s shipping company, to inquire for news of their loved ones and for details about the lives of some of the famous people of their time. While many accounts of the Titanic ’s voyage focus on the technical or mechanical aspects of why the ship sank, Voyagers of the Titanic follows the stories of the men, women, and children whose lives intersected on the vessel’s fateful last day, covering the full range of first, second, and thi