Titanic Fortune & Fate - 1998

Front Cover, Titanic Forute & Fate: Letters, Mementos, and Personal Effects from Those Who Sailed on the Lost Ship © 1998

Front Cover, Titanic Forute & Fate: Letters, Mementos, and Personal Effects from Those Who Sailed on the Lost Ship © 1998. GGA Image ID # 10d2460bfe

From the Dust Jacket Flaps

Titanic: Fortune & Fate is a work extraordinary in its breadth and quality, a profound remembrance of the motivations, thoughts, and feelings—some tragic, some heroic—that marked the ship’s only voyage. There is a haunting aura surrounding the authentic items possessed by those aboard the Titanic on its last night at sea.

Titanic: Fortune & Fate unveils these historic treasures—many of which have never before been seen outside private collections. Multimillionaire John Jacob Astor’s gold pocket watch and cuff links; one of three existing Titanic life vests, which kept a man from drowning even as he froze to death in the 28-degree water; the 2,700-year-old Egyptian talisman “unsinkable” Molly Brown carried with her to safety; and a silk scarf that Madeline Astor gave to third-class passenger Leah Aks to warm her infant son as they waited for rescue—all are among the poignant reminders of the ship’s victims and survivors.

First-class passenger Jack 'Thayer, who helped women and children into lifeboats, then finally jumped into the water as the ship was making its icy descent, remembered, “We were a mass of hopeless, dazed humanity attempting, as the Almighty and Nature made us, to keep our final breath until the last possible moment.”

But it was Steward Angus Davis who eerily predicted the great tragedy when he wrote before the vessel sailed that he “hoped the ship would go down to the bottom of the ocean.”

His prophetic words symbolize Titanic's timeless warning of the dangers of human fallibility, frailty, and pride, which that night, according to first- class passenger Marian Thayer, took the form of “the most awful thing that anyone could ever conceive.”

As a companion to The Mariners’ Museum’s acclaimed litanie exhibition, the first of its kind in North America, this stunning volume is a tribute to the Museum’s esteemed reputation as one of the world’s premier institutions of maritime history.

The powerful images and honest text together evoke the panorama of human emotions—from pride and anticipation to courage and despair— that have long been associated with the Titanic, but rarely expressed so eloquently.

“The Titanic story will never die,” third-class passenger Millvina Dean predicted, and more than eighty years later, the Titanic continues to intrigue us. Current portrayals of the legend on stage and screen have held millions spellbound, demonstrating that our fascination with the ship reaches far beyond her famous opulence and devastating tragedy.

What we can’t forget are the individual stories of her passengers and crew, which here come to life through the letters, mementos, and personal effects they left behind.

From the Back Cover

Back Cover, Titanic Forute & Fate: Letters, Mementos, and Personal Effects from Those Who Sailed on the Lost Ship © 1998

Back Cover, Titanic Forute & Fate: Letters, Mementos, and Personal Effects from Those Who Sailed on the Lost Ship © 1998. GGA Image ID # 10d250a20a

“Titanic: Fortune & Fate not only deals with the history of the Titanic disaster but encourages deeper participation by providing each reader with the experience of what it was like to be aboard. This book is not to be missed.” —Don Lynch, author of Titanic: An Illustrated History

“Here are artifacts and memorabilia from the voyage of the Titanic
that can be seen nowhere else. Compelling, personal, sad, and lovely... the images are unforgettable.”
Ken Marschall. illustrator of Titanic: An Illustrated History

Publication Information

  • Title: "Titanic" Fortune and Fate: Personal Effects from Those on the Lost Ship
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Publication Date: 1998-09-02
  • Authors: Beverly McMillan, Stanley Lehrer, Va. Staff Mariners' Museum Newport News
  • Number Of Pages: 192 pages
  • Format: Hardcover
  • ISBN-10: 0684857103
  • ISBN-13: 9780684857107
  • LCCN: 98-036369
  • SKU: GOR001310854
  • LC Classification Number: G530.T6M35 1998
  • Dewey Decimal: 910/.91634
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