The Titanic Chronicles

by Nathaniel Philbrick 2 books in this series

The Titanic Chronicles brings together Walter Lord’s two major studies of the RMS Titanic disaster. A Night to Remember reconstructs the night of 14–15 April 1912 through survivor testimony, following passengers and crew from the collision with the iceberg to the arrival of the Carpathia. The Night Lives On returns to the evidence three decades later, reassessing the ship’s design, the lifeboat shortage, wireless communications, the conduct of nearby vessels and the myths that accumulated around the sinking.

Read together, the books show how historical understanding changes as testimony, technical investigation and later research are compared. Lord’s restrained narrative and attention to class, duty, error and chance helped establish the Titanic as both a precisely documented maritime disaster and a symbol of Edwardian confidence brought abruptly to an end.

Reading order

Books in this series (2 books)

1. A Night to Remember

Nathaniel Philbrick

4.6(5,158)

Walter Lord reconstructs the sinking of RMS Titanic almost minute by minute, beginning with the iceberg sighting late on 14 April 1912 and ending with the rescue of survivors by RMS Carpathia. Drawing on interviews with more than sixty survivors as well as testimony and contemporary…

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2. The Night Lives On

Nathaniel Philbrick

4.5(1,030)

Three decades after A Night to Remember, Walter Lord returns to the Titanic with evidence and arguments that had emerged since his first reconstruction. Rather than retelling the sinking in the same form, he investigates disputed questions: how the collision damaged the hull, whether excessive speed…

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