Audiobook · read by volunteers
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters
Logan Marshall (1884–1937)
Read by Allyson Hester · 19 chapters · 7 h 51
About the book
On a cold April night in 1912, the largest ship afloat struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and went down, taking more than a thousand lives with it. In the same year, Logan Marshall put together this account, drawing on the testimony of survivors and the press coverage of the day. The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters tells the story of that night and then widens its view to other terrible wrecks and rescues from the history of the sea. It reflects the shock, grief and fascination that gripped the public at the time, and its pages are full of the details that newspapers and survivors reported in those first weeks. Nineteen files, read by Allyson Hester in nearly eight hours, offer a vivid period document for anyone drawn to maritime history.
Introduction
The loss of the Titanic in April 1912 was one of the best-known disasters of the twentieth century, and it prompted an immediate flood of books, articles and memorials. Logan Marshall (1884-1937) was one of the authors who rushed to meet the public's demand for information. His book, published in the same year as the disaster, describes the sinking and then provides a series of narratives about other famous disasters at sea.
The book presents itself as a detailed account built from the testimony of those on board who survived. As with many publications produced in the weeks after a major event, the book relied on newspaper reports, survivors' statements and the information then available, and it was written in a dramatic and sometimes sentimental style that suited the popular market. Later investigations and research have corrected some of the details, so the book is best read as a record of what was known and believed in 1912, rather than as a definitive history.
That, in fact, is its interest today. It shows how the disaster was reported and how the public responded, and it preserves the language and attitudes of the age. Its wider survey of great sea disasters also places the Titanic within a longer tradition of maritime catastrophe.
This LibriVox recording is read by Allyson Hester. It runs for about seven hours and fifty-four minutes and is divided into nineteen files. Chapter headings such as Chapter 2 and 3 and Chapter 4 and 5 indicate how the text was grouped for recording. It will suit listeners interested in the history of the sea, in early twentieth-century popular publishing or in the story of the Titanic as it was first told.
Public domain
Logan Marshall died in 1937: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text