A Night to Remember: The Classic Account of the Final Hours of teh Titanic

A Titanic funnel falls, almost hitting a lifeboat--and consequently washing it 30 yards away from the wreck, saving all lives aboard. One man calmly rides the vertical boat down as it sinks, steps into the sea, and doesn't even get his head wet while waiting to be successfully rescued. On one side of the boat, almost no males are permitted in the lifeboats; on the other, even a male Pekingese dog gets a seat. Lord includes a crucial, tragically ironic drama Cameron couldn't fit into the film: the failure of the nearby ship Californian to save all those aboard the sinking vessel because distress lights were misread as random flickering and the telegraph was an early wind-up model that no one wound.

Lord's account is also smarter about the horrifying class structure of the disaster, which Cameron reduces to hollow Hollywood formula. No children died in the First and Second Class decks; 53 out of 76 children in steerage died. According to the press, which regarded the lower-class passengers as a small loss to society, "The night was a magnificent confirmation of women and children first, yet somehow the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than First Class men." As the ship sank, writes Lord, "the poop deck, normally Third Class space ... was suddenly becoming attractive to all kinds of people." Lord's logic is as cold as the Atlantic, and his bitter wit is quite dry.

Gliding through a calm sea, disdainful of all obstacles, the Titanic brushed an iceberg. Two hours and forty minutes later, she upended and sank. Only 705 survivors were picked up from her half-filled boats. And she had been called "the ship that God Himself couldn't sink."

A Night to Remember is a minute-by-minute account of her fatal collision with an iceberg and how the resulting tragedy brought out the best and worst in human nature. Some gave their lives for others, some fought for survival. Wives beseeched husbands to join them in the boats; gentlemen went taut-lipped to their deaths in full evening dress; hundreds of steerage passengers, trapped below decks, sought help in vain.

If you've seen the movie by James Cameron, this book is highly recommended to get the real story.


The grand-daddy of all Titanic books...   October 30, 2003
meiringen (the Midwest)
The grand-daddy of all Titanic books, and still one of the best. Much has been written and updated since this book was written in 1955, but it still holds its place as the one that started the interest in the grand old ship, and her tragic fate. Just the starting point for anyone interested in the Titanic...


Old but never archaic.   August 2, 2003
Anna Murray (Chicago, IL USA)
Even with the amount of time I've been studying the "Titanic" legend, I still discovered a few new things about the disaster that I didn't know. You won't find a more detailed account anywhere else!


All you need to know about TITANIC is right here !   May 19, 2003
I have received Walter lord's book "A night to remember" and the movie, two weeks ago, since then I have read the book two times and seen the movie three times ! This book is the one and only book you'll ever need to buy to have all the real facts and details about that terrible night.
YOU WILL NOT REGET BUYING THIS BOOK !!