Shadow of the Titanic

About this book

While much has been written about the Titanic, her shocking demise, and those who perished, very little has been devoted to the hundreds of survivors. In Shadow of the Titanic, Andrew Wilson offers a look at how their lives were affected by living through this catastrophic event. Those who lived to tell the tale reveal how they coped in the aftermath. Using archival research and interviews with family members, Wilson tells their stories. He shows how some survivors used their experience to propel themselves on to fame and how others were wracked with guilt and refused to acknowledge they had been there. Some reputations were destroyed, and some survivors were so psychologically damaged that they took their own lives years later. From the famous survivors like Bruce Ismay and Madeline Astor -- who became a bride, a widow, and a mother all within a year -- to lesser known survivors Dorothy Gibson and the Navartil brothers -- who were traveling under assumed names because they were being abducted by their father -- Shadow of the Titanic offers a host of stories that add a new dimension to our understanding of this legendary disaster.