Sara Wheeler
Going Down With The Ship
How to Survive the Titanic, or The Sinking of J Bruce Ismay
By Frances Wilson
Bloomsbury 352pp £18.99
This book is the first of a tide marking next year’s centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, the greatest peacetime shipwreck in history. The disaster has cemented itself into the national psyche and, as Frances Wilson points out in this playful addition to the voluminous Titanic literature, the story extends well beyond a band that played on. Vanity, fin de siècle, the sad absurdity of life, how we live with the consequences of our actions – Wilson deals deftly with all this and more.
Her focus is the 49-year-old J Bruce Ismay, chairman and managing director of the White Star Line, the company that built the Titanic. Ismay inherited the immensely profitable White Star from his father, but had sold it to J P Morgan before the intervention of the famous iceberg. At
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
Give the gift that lasts all year with a subscription to Literary Review. Save up to 35% on the cover price when you visit us at https://literaryreview.co.uk/subscribe and enter the code 'XMAS24'