Title: A Night to Remember
Author: Walter Lord
Publication date: 1955
Length: 182 pages
Rating:

Lord’s classic bestseller, and the definitive account of the unsinkable ship’s fateful last hours

At first, no one but the lookout recognized the sound. Passengers described it as the impact of a heavy wave, a scraping noise, or the tearing of a long calico strip. In fact, it was the sound of the world’s most famous ocean liner striking an iceberg, and it served as the death knell for 1,500 souls.

In the next two hours and forty minutes, the maiden voyage of the Titanic became one of history’s worst maritime accidents. As the ship’s deck slipped closer to the icy waterline, women pleaded with their husbands to join them on lifeboats. Men changed into their evening clothes to meet death with dignity. And in steerage, hundreds fought bitterly against certain death. At 2:15 a.m. the ship’s band played “Autumn.” Five minutes later, the Titanic was gone.

Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, Lord’s moment-by-moment account is among the finest books written about one of the twentieth century’s bleakest nights.

Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember was considered the “definitive” account of the Titanic tragedy at the time of the book’s publication in 1955. The author interviewed survivors and witnesses of the aftermath, and clearly pored painstakingly through the historical records at the time. The result is a narrative that takes readers moment by moment through the events of that “night to remember”, showing the scope of the tragedy from multiple points of view and experiences.

From our vantage point over one hundred years later, none of this is new information exactly. The sinking of the Titanic is one of the most well-known events of the 20th century, after all, and countless books have been written about it, both fiction and non-fiction. And there’s a certain movie too…

Still, reading A Night to Remember is a fascinating experience. The author meticulously follows the timeline, from hitting the iceberg to the moment the ship slid completely beneath the water, to the survivors in their lifeboats and the rescue hours later by the Carpathia. As the night’s events progress, we follow the experiences of the people who were there — the wealthy first class passengers whose names are most familiar, the passengers in steerage, and the crew — officers, bakers, even a masseuse. The author often shows different perceptions of the same event, depicting specific passengers’ descriptions of what they saw and felt.

It’s an engrossing read. At the time of impact, one crewmember was certain it was a propeller problem. A passenger noted that it felt like the ship rolled over “a thousand marbles”. Another reported that it seemed “as though somebody had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship.” Repeatedly throughout the book, we hear the voices of the Titanic’s survivors describing what they felt in the moment and what they remember about it as they look back.

While I’ve read quite a bit about the Titanic over the years (and have more Titanic fiction yet to read on my shelves), I haven’t read such a straightforward account of aspects of the sinking. The details on who got into which lifeboats and how, and the experience of being in these boats between the sinking and the rescue are all very interesting and provide yet another view into the terrors of that night.

One of the book’s appendices is a list of the Titanic’s passengers and crew, identifying those lost and those who survived. It’s just a list… and yet, it’s one of the most powerful elements of this book. We know the numbers, but seeing the names, on page after page, makes it all so much more stark and tragic.

The storytelling approach in A Night to Remember is a no-nonsense narrative. The writing itself isn’t fancy — the author wisely keeps the focus on the people and events, and doesn’t embellish or speculate beyond what the witnesses themselves may have wondered or assumed. There are people highlighted in this book whom I hadn’t heard of before, and it was lovely to get to appreciate the small and large acts of kindness and heroism that were new to me.

I’m very glad to have finally read this book, which I’d had my eye on for quite a while. As I’ve said, there’s no lack of written material about the Titanic, but A Night to Remember really does feel like a classic, stand-out account. Highly recommended.

Walter Lord wrote a follow-up book decades later, after Robert Ballard’s discovery of the wreck of the Titanic. The Night Lives On was published in 1986.

In this New York Times bestseller, the author of A Night to Remember and The Miracle of Dunkirk revisits the Titanic disaster.

Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember was a landmark work that recounted the harrowing events of April 14, 1912, when the British ocean liner RMS Titanic went down in the North Atlantic Ocean, a book that inspired a classic movie of the same name. In The Night Lives On, Lord takes the exploration further, revealing information about the ship’s last hours that emerged in the decades that followed, and separating myths from facts.

Was the ship really christened before setting sail on its maiden voyage? What song did the band play as water spilled over the bow? How did the ship’s wireless operators fail so badly, and why did the nearby Californian, just ten miles away when the Titanic struck the iceberg, not come to the rescue? Lord answers these questions and more, in a gripping investigation of the night when approximately 1,500 victims were lost to the sea.

I do intend to read this book as well, and will likely go back to my Titanic fiction shelf in the near future.