When Luxury Went to Sea
Front Cover and Spine, When Luxury Went to Sea by Douglas Phillips-Birt, 1971. GGA Image ID # 209163c70e
Excerpt from When Luxury Went to Sea
The age of the luxury liner opened in the 1890s flared into final brightness in the 1950s of the present century and lingers today in the shape of one ship, the French Line's France.
Meanwhile, another, the Cunard's QE2, tries to establish an acceptable modern interpretation of what was once uninhibited, proudly exclusive grandeur afloat.
The liners of this age served the route of gold linking Europe with the brazenly rich United States of America, where a new class of person was learning how to spend money as lavishly as any Old World rentier.
Contents
- Text
- Plates
- Acknowledgements
- Index
Back Cover, When Luxury Went to Sea by Douglas Phillips-Birt, 1971. GGA Image ID # 209167e5db
From the Inside DJ Flap
In the late 1890s, with the development of North Atlantic passenger routes well underway, luxury liners began to appear in the leading merchant fleets—designed to satisfy the demands of a wealthier and predominantly American traveling public who believed that "how you travel is who you are."
This attractively illustrated study begins with a prelude to this period, contrasting the rising standards of comfort afloat brought by the steamships in Dickens' time with the magnificent interiors of such famous ships as the Aquitania, the SS France, the RMS Queen Mary, and the SS United States.
The book brings the story up to the present day, noting the stages by which the luxury liner, now almost extinct, has been turned into a cruising liner in which comfort rather than luxury prevails.
It is as much a social as a maritime study, reflecting in the world afloat the swing from an exclusive to an egalitarian society—with a dash of nostalgia for the splendors of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
Ships Index
- America
- Amerika
- Aquitania
- Atlantic
- Berengaria
- Bismarck
- Bremen
- Britannia
- Caledonia
- Carpathia
- Conti di Savoia
- Deutschland
- Etruria
- Europa
- France, (1912
- France (1962)
- Great Eastern
- Ile de France
- Imperator
- Kaiserin Auguste Victoria
- Kaiser Wilhelm der Gross
- Kaiser Wilhelm II
- Kronprinz Wilhelm II
- Leviathan
- Liberté
- Lusitania
- Majestic
- Manhattan
- Mauretania
- Nahlin
- Normandie
- North Star
- Olympic
- QE2
- Queen Elizabeth
- Queen Mary
- Ravel
- Rex
- Rome
- Sapphire
- Titanic
- Umbria
- United States
- Valiant
- Vaterland
- Washington
Library of Congress Catalog Listing
- Personal name: Phillips-Birt, Douglas, 1920-1978.
- Main title: When luxury went to sea [by] Douglas Phillips-Birt.
- Published/Created: Newton Abbot, David and Charles, 1971.
- Description: 96 p. (chiefly illus., facsim.). 25 cm.
- ISBN: 071535339X
- LC Classification: VM381 .P47
- LC Subjects: Ocean liners.
- Dewey class no.: 387.2/43
- National bib no.: B71-20387
- Type of material: Book