Lawrence Beesley’s The Loss of the SS Titanic was first published in 1912. It is an acutely observed and meticulously detailed account of the maiden voyage and what happened when a dire situation unfolded one starry Sunday night.
Beesley’s work is the zenith of eyewitness accounts. He was an actual passenger, and left a rich descriptive legacy for future generations.
Joseph E. Chipperfield’s book, The Story of a Great Ship, came later, around 1930. It is aimed at a younger readership. Chipperfield’s book, because of its great scarcity, is one of the most sought after among Titanic bibliophiles.
It is noteworthy that Chipperfield’s book has an author’s preface – but nowhere in that standfirst is there any mention of Lawrence Beesley. How curious then that a close realization of Beesley’s original passages should resurface in Chipperfield!
The accusation is one of unacknowledged plagiarism. Let the following be taken in evidence:
The famous incident of the Slade brothers arriving late for the Titanic’s sailing:
Beesley: “A knot of stokers ran along the way, with their kit slung over their shoulders in bundles and made for the gangway with the evident intention of joining the ship… They argued, gesticulated, apparently attempting to explain the reasons why they were late…
Chipperfield: “Three stokers, with their kit slung across their shoulders, appeared running down the dock. Shouting and gesticulating, they endeavored to board the liner…
The New York Incident
Beesley: “The second incident occurred soon afterwards… as the Titanic moved majestically down the dock… we came together level with the steamer New York lying moored to the side of the dock with Oceanic… the New York crept towards us, slowly and stealthily, as if drawn by some invisible force which she was powerless to withstand…
Chipperfield: “The second event happened not many minutes later… as the Titanic moved towards the mouth of the dock, she had to pass the New York, a steamer moored alongside the Oceanic… the smaller ship began to move stealthily towards the Titanic, drawn by a force she was unable to withstand…
Cherbourg
Beesley: “In the calmest weather we made Cherbourg just as it grew dusk…
Chipperfield: “In the calmest of weather the Titanic made Cherbourg just as it was growing dusk…
Queenstown
Beesley: “The coast of Ireland looked very beautiful as we approached Queenstown harbour, the brilliant morning sun showing up the green hillsides and picking out groups of dwellings dotted here and there…
Chipperfield: “The Titanic was due at Queenstown about noon on the Thursday. As the liner approached, the coast of Ireland looked humid and beautiful, the sunshine streaming down upon the rich green fields and turning into glistening diamonds the little white-washed cottages that dotted the interior…
Beesley: “We took on board the pilot, ran slowly towards the harbour with the sounding-line dropping all the time, and came to a stop well out to sea, with our screws churning up the bottom and turning the sea all brown with sand from below…
Chipperfield: “a pilot boarded the Titanic, and the huge vessel steamed slowly towards Queenstown harbour, with a seaman heaving the sounding-line every few minutes… the liner stopped well out at sea with her propellers churning up the sand from the sea bed…
Beesley: “The tenders cast off… at 1.30 pm… the Titanic turned slowly through a quarter-circle until her nose pointed down along the Irish coast, and then steamed rapidly away from Queenstown, the little house on the left of the town gleaming white on the hillside for many miles astern. In our wake soared and screamed hundreds of gulls…
Chipperfield: “The tenders cast off. It was a little after one-thirty when the screw of the liner revolved and the great ship turned her bows seawards… she steamed quickly away, the houses and churches of Queenstown gleaming white in the sunshine. Hundreds of gulls followed in the liner’s wake, some screaming…
Beesley: “I …was astonished at the eased with which they soared and kept up with the ship with hardly a motion of their wings…
Chipperfield: “The birds seemed to fly with an ease that was amazing, sometimes soaring up, sometimes down, but never once losing pace with the ship…
Beesley: “All afternoon we steamed along the coast of Ireland, with grey cliffs guarding the shores and hills rising behind… the Irish mountains dim and faint…
Chipperfield: “All that afternoon the Titanic steamed past the Irish coast where grey cliffs and rising hills… the mountains of Ireland appeared dim and faint…
The Second Day’s Run
Beesley: “The second day’s run… was… a disappointment, and we should not dock until Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night.
Chipperfield: “The second day’s run was not particularly striking, and it was at first thought that the vessel would not dock until the following Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night...
The List to Port
Beesley: “I… called… attention… to the way the Titanic listed to port… and we all watched the sky-line through the portholes… it was plain she did so, for the sky-line and sea on the port side were visible… and on the starboard only sky…
Chipperfield: “Somebody drew attention to the way the liner listed to port, and then everybody watched the port-holes, and it was clear the vessel did indeed have a list, for on one side both sea and sky was visible, and on the other the sky only…
Rockets
Beesley: “Suddenly a rush of light from the forward deck, a hissing roar… and a rocket leapt upwards to where the stars blink and twinkled above us…
Chipperfield: “There was a rush of light from the forward deck as with a hissing roar a rocket leapt upwards, seeming to mingle with the brightly twinkling stars.
***
It is perhaps needless to continue. If the point is not made by now, it never can be. Much of Chipperfield’s book is a literal re-hash of Beesley, though in most instances he has the grace to slightly change the wording.
But the thoughts, the images, are Beesley’s thoughts and images, and his is the narrative force that has been shamelessly used to power Chipperfield’s passages.
The fateful Sunday and the sinking passages are a soup of pilfered lines. Disguise and alteration, re-sequencing and readjustment – the cloth is that of the original 1912 author, re-cut and refitted, measure for measure.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but imitation in itself implies a borrowed style or framework – not a brazen and verbatim theft! The examples sited above appear to justify the accusation that Chipperfield passes off Beesley’s similes as his own. Are they proof enough to convict him of plagiarism, the most heinous literary crime of all?
If you think the answer is yes, let the “hissing roar” we read in Chipperfield now be one of critical disdain…
While the prose of Lawrence Beesley soars celestial and alone.
Senan Molony.
