On the night of 14–15 April 1912, Titanic, a brand-new, supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest perished in the icy-cold waters of the North Atlantic, and the tragedy has fascinated and perplexed the world ever since.
This stunning book tells the story of not just the Titanic, but also of its sister ships, Olympic and Britannic. Maritime experts J. Kent Layton, Tad Fitch, and Bill Wormstedt tell the stories of these legendary liners with a compelling narrative alongside original artwork from up-and-coming artists, bringing to life the design, construction and service of the ships together with the wrecks of the ill-fated Titanic and Britannic.
From the cold, starry night when Titanic collided with her iceberg to the tragic wartime loss of Britannic and the impressive reliability of the long-lived Olympic, this cinematic and immersive new study captures all of the glory and drama of the Olympic-class age and allows readers to visualise Titanic and her sisters like never before.
Tad Fitch has researched the Titanic and maritime history for over two decades. He has written numerous articles related to Titanic that have been published in the Titanic Historical Society’s journal The Titanic Commutator, and online at Bill Wormstedt’s Titanic and Encyclopedia Titanica. He, along with George Behe and Bill Wormstedt, coauthored the landmark article “Titanic: The Lifeboat Launching Sequence Re-Examined”. He was a co-author of Report Into the Loss of SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal. Tad was born in northeast Ohio, and works in the field of psychology. When not writing, he enjoys scuba diving and training in taekwondo.
Bill Wormstedt first became interested in the Titanic after reading Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember in junior high school. He discovered the online Titanic community in 1995, and soon started commenting and writing about the Titanic, and his articles have been published in THS’s The Titanic Commutator, Encyclopedia Titanica, and his own web-site, Bill Wormstedt’s Titanic. With Tad Fitch and George Behe, he co-wrote The Lifeboat Launching Sequence Re-Examined, and is one of 11 co-authors of Report Into the Loss of SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal. Bill is a computer programmer who lives and works in Seattle, Washington.
