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    Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
    Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
    Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
    Audiobook10 hours

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

    Written by Hugh Brewster

    Narrated by Paul Boehmer

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    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, 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?"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 18, 2018
    ISBN9781541444539
    Author

    Hugh Brewster

    Hugh Brewster is the award-winning author of Anastasia's Album and Inside the Titanic, and the co-author of 882 1/2 Amazing Answers To Your Questions About the Titanic with Laurie Coulter.

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    Reviews for Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage

    4/5

    76 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book looks at the lives of some of the 1st class passengers who were on the Titanic, as well as their time on the Titanic and the aftermath.

      I really enjoyed this. I have to admit that I was more interested in the happenings on the ship vs. their lives before and after, so the second half of the book was a bit more interesting, I thought - as soon as the ship hit the iceberg. Overall, though, I still really enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      Interesting


      Book Description
      Release date: March 27, 2012
      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 intimate atmosphere onboard history’s most famous ship is recreated as never before. 

         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, presenting the very latest thinking on everything from when and how the lifeboats were loaded to the last tune played by the orchestra. Yet here too is a convincing evocation of the table talk at the famous Widener dinner party held in the Ritz Restaurant on the last night. And here we also experience the rustle of elegant undergarments as first-class ladies proceed down the grand staircase in their soigné evening gowns, some of them designed by Lady Duff Gordon, the celebrated couterière, who was also on board.

            Another well-known passenger was the artist Frank Millet, who led an astonishing life that seemed to encapsulate America’s Gilded Age—from serving as a drummer boy in the Civil War to being the man who made Chicago’s White City white for the 1893 World Exposition. His traveling companion Major Archibald Butt was President Taft’s closest aide and was returning home for a grueling fall election campaign that his boss was expected to lose. Today, both of these once-famous men are almost forgotten, but their ship-mate Margaret Tobin Brown lives on as “the Unsinkable Molly Brown,” a name that she was never called during her lifetime. 

             Millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, writer Helen Churchill Candee, movie actress Dorothy Gibson, aristocrat Noelle, the Countess of Rothes, and a host of other travelers on this fateful crossing are also vividly brought to life within these pages. 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?”
      Show less
    • 4/5
      Whew. Who isn’t intrigued by the sinking of the Titanic? As Brewster reminds us, even people who have never heard the old Greek myths know the mythic story of the demise of the Titanic. Who isn’t intrigued by the stories of the very rich on board this ship? And who better to tell this story than Titanic expert Hugh Brewster?

      If you are in need of a new fabulous Titanic read, this is it.
    • 4/5
      The story of the Titanic's fateful April 1912 voyage told with a combination of first person accounts and historical records. Although this book doesn't add a ton to the story of what happened that night, it is told with a Canadian perspective that makes it fresh and interesting.
    • 5/5
      This book was very well written and brought you right on board with the survivors. Telling their stories and fears gave the Titanic a whole new overview. Would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the disaster.
    • 3/5
      This book focuses on the lives of the first class passengers aboard the ill fated luxury liner Titanic. The first half of the book id slow going as the author outlines the back-stories of upper class passengers, and quite frankly, was not very interesting to me.

      The book, however, becomes riveting once the ship strikes the iceberg and the reader is given an intimate view into the good, the bad, and the ugly of what happened as the ship went down.

      The author also gives us a look at the passengers aboard the Carpathia. after the ship picks them up at sea and the media frenzy that awaited them as they finally docked in New York. It's this last half of the book that makes it worth reading.
    • 5/5
      This is a superb installment in the story of the Titanic. Hugh Brewster has presented us with a marvelous telling of the stories of those passengers in first class who have become household names as a result of the tragedy. The lives of these people captivates and the author it to be commended for a job well-done. I especially enjoyed the section at the end of the book that told of the fates of those first class survivors.
    • 5/5
      Hugh Brewster in his book, Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, brilliantly introduces us to the passengers in First Class in such a way that you feel you know them as individual flesh-and-blood human beings before they came on board, and then allows you to see them move about the ship and face the maritime challenge in their own fashion. The Titanic's passenger list included not just wealthy people but people who were famous on the basis of their work in politics, theater, fashion and business. Some of them had encountered significant challenges in their lives as they ascended the status of first-class. I had no idea of who Lady Lucille Duff-Gordon had been *before* she became one of the world's most notable designers of women's fashions. Neither had I much of an idea of what the travelling of that time might entail for Edwardian-era "jet-setters". One passenger came aboard with fourteen (14) steamer trunks, four suitcases and three packing crates as well as a quarter of a million dollars in jewelry. And finally, I'd no idea of the Americans who were aboard that ship, several of whom were from Main Line Philadelphia families. We always assume the wealthy of that time were from New York families or from Washington DC. Yet there was one family returning on the Titanic for the funeral of their college age son who had been killed in a motoring accident. That mother lost her husband and a second son on the night of April 14, 1912. Hugh Brewster managed to bring all of these people to life for me. And before I was done with the book, I had to put it down because I knew their ending and it was too painful to read what was going to happen to people who had been made real to me. Let's be honest; modern life has caused many of us to be made jaded and numb to the worst of historical events. It takes a strong author to revive those sensitivities.

      The book is a relatively quick read (just about 300 pages), liberally illustrated with photos of the passengers in happier days. It begins with the boarding of a percentage of the passengers at the Cherbourg Quay on Wednesday afternoon, April 10th and closes with the arrival of the survivors on the Carpathia in New York on Thursday, April 18th. There are some pages given over to the investigations following, but that element is minimized in the greater narrative about the people.

      This is popular history, not terribly dense or academic, but an excellent example of the educational value of such non-fiction. There are about 50 pages of supplemental materials as well, including a nice bibliography. If you have an interest in the topic, you should certainly read this book.
    • 4/5
      With the 100th anniversary of Titanic's tragic ending upon our doorstep, this is a fitting book to be released now. It centers on the first class passengers of the famed ship. Their lives before and (for those who lived) after the sinking. This is a highly readable and enjoyable book. It is immediately obvious that a great deal of research went into the writing of this book.

      A wonderful addition to the many books about Titanic. Fitting for the anniversary year.
    • 4/5
      It has been a long time since I have read a Titanic book, but even so I think this one is a little different than the ones I remember reading. One can tell a great amount of research has gone into this very readable and informative book, centering on the many of the people on board the Titanic and their backs stories. The usual descriptions of the dinners and the luxury found on the boat is there as well, but it also covers what many of the people did while on the boat. Somehow or another getting to know a little more about these people made the evacuation and the sinking even more personal and tragic. This is a good albeit chilling read.