Illustrated with fascinating photographs and drawings of the ship and its passengers, this engaging text tells the story of the supposedly unconquerable vessel that ultimately proved to be all too fallible. Readers interested in the history of sea travel or the human response to disaster will find this book to be an invaluable addition to their library.

    A fact filled account of the greatest disaster to befall a Canadian city.

    An entire section is dedicated to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald -- the most famous maritime loss in modern times -- in Lake Superior in 1975.Chilling watercolor illustrations, photographs, maps, and news clippings accentuate Ratigan's compelling and dramatic storytelling. Sailors, historians, and general readers alike will be swept away by these unforgettable tales of tragedy and heroism.

    With a tremendous cracking and splintering of oak, it struck the ship just beneath the anchor secured at the cat-head on the port bow..." In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy.At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.

    As Season 3 of the award-winning TV series opens, it is 1920 and Downton Abbey is waking up to a world changed forever by World War I. New characters arrive and new intrigues thrive as the old social order is challenged by new expectations.In this new era, different family members abound (including Cora's American mother, played by Shirley MacLaine) and changed dynamics need to be resolved: Which branch of the family tree will Lord Grantham's first grandchild belong to? What will become of the servants, both old and new?The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, carefully pieced together at the heart and hearth of the ancestral home of the Crawleys, takes us deeper into the story of every important member of the Downton estate.This lavish, entirely new book from Jessica Fellowes focuses on each character individually, examining their motivations, their actions, and the inspirations behind them. An evocative combination of story, history, and behind-the-scenes drama, it will bring fans even closer to the secret, beating heart of the house.

    With Voyagers of the Titanic, Richard Davenport-Hines gives us a magnificent history of the people intimately connected with the infamous ship—from deal-makers and industry giants, like J.P. Morgan, who built and operated it; to Molly Brown, John Jacob Astor IV, and other glittering aristocrats who occupied its first class cabins; to the men and women traveling below decks hoping to find a better life in America. Commemorating the centennial anniversary of the great disaster, Voyagers of the Titanic offers a fascinating, uniquely original view of one of the most momentous catastrophes of the 20th century.

    He brings this vibrant city's long and noble history alive through the ever-shifting fortunes, fates, and intrigues of half-a-dozen families, from the age of Julius Caesar to the 20th century. Generation after generation, these families embody the passion, struggle, wealth, and verve of the greatest city in the world.

    Author Daniel Pool provides countless intriguing details (did you know that the "plums" in Christmas plum pudding were actually raisins?) on the Church of England, sex, Parliament, dinner parties, country house visiting, and a host of other aspects of nineteenth-century English life—both "upstairs" and "downstairs."An illuminating glossary gives at a glance the meaning and significance of terms ranging from "ague" to "wainscoting," the specifics of the currency system, and a lively host of other details and curiosities of the day.

    From ancient Rome to Edwardian England, from the lavish rooms of Versailles to the dankest corners of the Bastille, the great royals of Europe have excelled at savage parenting, deadly rivalry, pathological lust, and meeting death with the utmost indignity-or just very bad luck.

    This is a factual account, written in the pace of fiction, of hundreds of dramatic losses, heroic rescues, and violent adventures at the stormy meeting place of northern and southern winds and waters -- the Graveyard of the Atlantic off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

    Illustrations.

    His narrative reads like a novel, yet every word is true. Bruce Caplan took the original work and edited and abridged the book to include new information and today is a much sought-after public speaker and consided a premier Titanic expert. Myth: the ship was safest when it left port. Reality: the ship was on fire from the time it left Southampton. Not a tiny blaze, but a roaring inferno that probably contributed to the disaster. Myth: All the men patiently stood by and let the women and children enter the few lifeboats.Reality: Men were shot on deck as they attempted to board the lifeboats and save their own lives.

    Designed to replicate the look and feel of the original 1912 classic, this republished treasure coincides with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the "Titanic" in April, 2012.

    "Drawing on diaries, letters, written accounts of survivors and testimony from the coroner's inquest...Tintori's engaging prose keeps readers on the edge" (Publishers Weekly).Inspired by a refrain of her girlhood—"Your grandfather survived the Cherry Mine disaster"—Karen Tintori began a search for her family's role in the harrowing tragedy of 1909. She uncovered the stories of victims, survivors, widows, orphans, townspeople, firefighters, reporters, and mine owners, and wove them together to pen Trapped, a riveting account of the tragic day that would inspire America's first worker's compensation laws and hasten much-needed child labor reform. On a Saturday morning in November of 1909, four hundred and eighty men went down into the mines as they had countless times before. But a fire erupted in the mineshaft that day and soon burned out of control. By nightfall, more than half the men would either be dead or trapped as officials sealed the mine in an attempt to contain the blaze. Miraculously, twenty men would emerge one week later, but not before the Cherry Mine disaster went down in history as the worst ever coal mine fire in the US—and not before all the treachery and heroism of mankind were revealed.

    The unthinkable occurred, and the Titanic went to the bottom. What happened on that cold and inky night has haunted and entranced us ever since. Goodness knows, there have been other disasters-far too many disasters. But as the initial reception to Titanic, the most popular movie ever, just now being re-released in 3-D, proves: There has never been a disaster that so captivates the human imagination as that of the sinking of the Titanic. Now, on the 100th anniversary of "the night to remember," LIFE revisits this awesome human drama. Heroism is involved, and hubris. Romance and recrimination. A thousand stories spiraling outward-and all of them told in this commemorative LIFE book, in words and pictures.This oversized, deluxe book is visually splendid and exciting on every page. It includes archival photography, past reporting in LIFE and the modern-day explorations of Robert Ballard and others that inspired the James Cameron film. The book will include a special section on the new 3-D treatment of the classic movie, just now being released. We return to first-person accounts, and the words of the survivors are brought to life-with many small stories from steerage told as well as the large, well-known drama from above decks. The book will also include interstitial chapters to lend context, such as a history of famous shipwrecks, and where the Titanic fits in the grand picture.At the end of the story, the fact we entered with is inescapable: The Titanic tragedy is the one we care about, and need to revisit.