A century after her sinking, social historian John Welshman reconstructs the fascinating individual histories of twelve of the passengers aboard the doomed liner, including a minute-by-minute account of the ship's last tragic hours.

In his famous book A Night to Remember, historian Walter Lord described the sinking of the Titanic as 'the last night of a small town'. Now, a hundred years after her sinking, John Welshman reconstructs the fascinating individual histories of twelve of the inhabitants of this tragically short-lived floating town. They include members of the crew; passengers in First, Second, and Third Class; women and men; adults and children; rich and poor. Among them are a ship's Captain, a Second Officer, an Assistant Wireless Operator; a Stewardess, an amateur military historian, a governess, a teacher, a domestic servant, a mother, and three children. What were their earlier histories? Who survived, and why, and who perished? And what happened to these people in the years after 1912? Titanic: The Last Night of a Small Town answers all these questions and more, while offering a minute-by-minute depiction of events aboard the doomed liner through the eyes of a broad and representative cross-section of those who sailed in her - both those who survived and those who didn't.

As thorough and yet compassionate an account as the disaster is ever likely to have.