The Ship of Dreams

The Ship of Dreams reconstructs the Titanic’s first and final voyage through six first-class passengers: Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; shipbuilder Thomas Andrews; John B. Thayer and his son Jack; Ida Straus; and actress Dorothy Gibson. Their backgrounds reveal different forms of privilege, work, migration and celebrity within the transatlantic world of 1912, while the ship itself embodies competition in engineering, luxury travel and the North Atlantic trade.

Russell follows the passengers from their lives before embarkation through the collision, evacuation and sinking, using survivor testimony, plans, artefacts and previously unpublished material. The disaster is placed beside the British class system, Irish Home Rule, Jewish American experience and the emerging film industry. Because the controlled catalogue has no dedicated Titanic record, the book is assigned to Edwardian Society, the most specific valid context for the social order the voyage both displayed and disrupted.