The Last Voyage of the Lusitania

Quality Book Club Edition - no dates - in good condition - has markings from use - due to differing weights in books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

On May 7, 1915, the huge Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, sank within sight of the Irish coast just eighteen minutes after being torpedoed by a German submarine. Never before in the history of warfare had an unarmed passenger ship been attacked without warning; a shocked world learnt of the loss of 1,198 lives, and the sinking of this ship was one of the factors which finally brought the United States into the war, for 124 Americans went down with her.

The Lusitania's passenger list included many names that were internationally famous, among them Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the millionaire; Sir Hugo Lane, the art-collector; Charles Frohman, the theatrical producer. What they, their fellow-passengers, the crew and the men of the German submarine itself, did in the hours preceding the attack and in the minutes after, as the Lusitania sank, makes a story that is both terrible and heroic.

This gripping book chronicles the last day's of the ship, following the lives of passengers and crew from before the time she left the pier at New York until the moment she heeled over and plunged to her grave in the Irish Sea. The authors vividly portray the agonising experiences of the survivors, and describe how the rescue ships, trawlers and tiny skiffs that put out from Queenstown, hunted the waters and were able to rescue some at least of the passengers. Through careful research never before revealed, and to reconstruct in all its nightmare detail a drama as poignant as any of modern times.