Her Name "Titanic": The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship - Softcover

Pellegrino, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380708922 ISBN 13: 9780380708925

Publisher: Avon Books, 1990

Synopsis

Combines the harrowing tragedy of the Titanic's maiden voyage with the story of the great ship's discovery two miles beneath the surface more than seventy years later. Reissue.

About this title

From the Author:

Titanic misunderstanding
I would like to correct a widespread misunderstanding about my book, Her Name Titanic. Because I was working with Bob Ballard and Tom Dettweiler at the time of the first two Titanic expeditions, I told the expedition story in a "you are there" style, including dialogue (which actually took place). To avoid a stylistic clash, I chose to describe the night the Titanic foundered in this same manner, about which historian Walter Lord commented, "It is impossible to pull off this sort of thing without knowing the facts, and Charlie Pellegrino knows his Titanic inside and out."

The misconception appears to arise from two factors: (A) the narrative style and (B) the fact that almost none of the events in this book appear in the British or American Inquiries into the loss of the Titanic, or in other books (which are based largely on the British and American Inquiries). The latter is in fact the reason my book is sub-titled "The Untold Story ..."

Still ... several Titanic historians have assumed that the events, on account of not being chronicled elsewhere, must be "made up". Not so. The events are chronicled in some forty years of correspondence by me and Walter Lord with Titanic survivors. By the time James Cameron called me to California, I had heard of this "assumption of fiction" from some of his advisors in THS, and so I brought a copy of the Lord/Pellegrino file with me (whereupon he was amazed to see that a scene he created as total fiction actually took place on the point bow - as described in Helen Churchill Candee's diary). Everyone was pleased, but there remained only one problem: only two copies of the file existed, in all the world, and if my house and Walter Lord's house ever happened to burn down on the same day (an event more likely, now that Walter and I are neighbors), a lot of history would be lost; and these papers are truly the Titanic's "Dead Sea Scrolls".

We have since reproduced the file, and James Cameron will soon be releasing much of this material in a rather fascinating project he has in mind.

Stay tuned.

Charles Pellegrino

P.S. On Frank "Lucks" Tower : note that in my Afterword I refer to him as representing either one of history's most extraordinary tales of coincidence and survival, or one of it's most remarkable liars. The case now seems to be the latter. Writer's supporting Tower's tale have pointed me to a "primary source", a woman claiming to be Towers' granddaughter. When I spoke with her she turned out to have known Big Foot on a first name basis and to be a member of the U.F.O. Frequent Flight Program - from which we might conclude that anything she has to say about the Titanic is a tad suspect.

Synopsis:

Offers a detailed account of the luxury liner's plunge into the ocean and discusses the people involved in the tragedy and the re-discovery and exploration of the vessel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0380708922
• ISBN 13: 9780380708925
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 283