Titanic survivor : the newly discovered memoirs of Violet Jessop who survived both the Titanic and Britannic disasters / Violet Jessop ; introduced, edited, and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

After a childhood in Argentina and formative years in England, Violet Jessop spent her entire career at sea. She was a stewardess for first-class passengers on the Titanic and she wrote an absolutely unique eyewitness account on the most written-about disaster of our time. Four years later, Violet was a nurse aboard the hospital ship Britannic when it struck a mine and sank to the bottom of the Aegean. But Titanic Survivor is much more. Violet Jessop's life story gives us a unique vantage point, whether in pantry, on deck or in a lifeboat. Jessop had a knack for spinning fascinating tales of fellow stewards, wartime alarums, impossible passengers, philandering shipmates, exotic ports and tragic deaths.A unique autobiography for those who want to know how it really felt, a story that could be told only by a Titanic Survivor.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

To compete with Cunard's fast liners Mauretania and Lusitania, White Star introduced the Olympic-class liner in 1911. It was followed by two sisters, the infamous Titanic in 1912 and the nearly forgotten Britannic in 1914. The "Unsinkable Molly Brown" might have been modeled on Jessop, who was a member of White Star's "victualing department" (a stewardess) and had the distinction of being aboard the Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke in 1911. She also worked on the Titanic when it sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 and was a nurse on the hospital ship Britannic when it hit a mine and sunk in the Aegean Sea in 1916. Jessop went to sea in 1908 at the age of 21, and her career ended in 1950 after sailing on more than 200 voyages. Her story, proficiently edited and annotated by Maxtone-Grahamn (The Only Way to Cross), tells of the hardships encountered by those who worked on the North Atlantic run. Jessop admits that "I did not like big ships, that I was secretly afraid" and this fear would be borne out on April 14, 1912 when Titanic hit an iceberg. Her description of the sinking is chilling as she sees to the needs of her passengers then looks for a warm coat for herself. While she was in the lifeboat, somebody threw a "forgotten baby in my arms," she writes. "Fascinated, my eyes never left the ship, as if by looking I could keep her afloat." And she began to count the decks: from five to four to three to two, to none. Her description of the sinking of the Britannic is equally compelling. Jessop has added a fresh, indispensable chapter to the legend of the Titanic that buffs and historians will find invaluable. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

In commemoration of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, many books on the subject are being published, but few can match this survivor's firsthand account in imparting a sense of immediacy. Jessop was born in 1887 in Argentina of Irish parents. As a girl, she went to live in England; as a young woman, she "went to sea" (in 1908) as an ocean-liner stewardess. Not only did she serve on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, but after surviving the horror of that tragedy, she was serving on the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, when, during World War I, it hit a mine in the Aegean Sea and sank. Jessop reentered service after the war and died in 1971, leaving behind this manuscript, which has been informatively annotated by editor John Maxtone-Graham. Readers of this absorbing account of her untrammeled life will agree that "ostensibly unsinkable in life, she has proved positively unsinkable posthumously." An important contribution to the growing body of Titanic literature. --Brad Hooper

Kirkus Book Review

Jessop's transporting backstage recollections of life at sea as a stewardess, including hurried departures from the Titanic and Brittanic. Although Jessop provides details of her sickly youth in Argentina (she found saucers her father squirreled away to poison insects and sampled liberally from them) and her role as surrogate parent to four younger brothers, as well as dutiful companion for her widowed mother, this memoir picks up momentum and color when in 1908 she signs on as a stewardess in the burgeoning passenger-ship trade. Jessop writes with an easy and enviable felicity of insufferable charges (``the haughty, gimlet eyes of a certain well-known society woman''), the unwanted gropings from the male staff, her cramped quarters (``so small that to move suddenly meant disaster to some part of one's anatomy''). Jessop ably conveys the complex passenger/steward relationship, which combined discreet social intimacy with a factotum's talent for handling all exigencies of shipboard life. She is also gently droll: ``The floor was generously covered with little skinned rugs that had the appearance of squashed animals.'' The horror of the foundering Titanic--``one awful moment of empty, misty darkness . . . then an unforgettable, agonizing cry went up from 1500 despairing throats, a long wail and then silence''--comes at the reader full force, as does the sinking of the hospital ship Brittanic, whose propellers chopped to shreds one lifeboat after another. From there it was on to her days aboard world cruisers and what is perhaps her saddest story, of a rickshaw driver's love and loss. Throughout, editor Maxtone-Graham (The Only Way to Cross, not reviewed) provides unobtrusive and enormously helpful annotations on ports, protocols, and additional tidbits of biography. Jessop was poised and graceful as a stewardess. She displays the same qualities as a writer. (35 b&w photos, not seen)