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Boyd-Smith, Peter. Titanic: From Rare Historical Reports. signed, limited, 1st printing. Southampton: Brooks Books. 1992. hardcover. collector’s edition limited to 705 copies, signed by the author, and by survivor Millvina Dean. isbn: 1872706134. scarcity: hard to find.
The title of this book is a bit misleading, as ‘Rare Historical Reports’ conjures up images of scarce White Star Line memos or long lost British government documents. There’s nothing like that in this book. A more accurate description of this work would be Titanic From Common Newspaper Articles of the Day.
Not that there is anything wrong with a history of the disaster as reported in the press. Newspaper accounts were the only source of information available to a clamoring public, and the author has done a wonderful job of bringing these news stories back to life. And in the sense that these newspaper articles are not accessible to the average reader, they certainly can be considered ‘rare reports’.
Quibbles about the title aside, this work is fascinating reading. The news accounts are arranged chronologically, which allows the reader to relive how the world learned, with agonizing slowness, the extent of the disaster as details slowly became available. Plus there are also numerous reproductions of original newspaper articles and photographs. Taken together, this book is an excellent account, not only of the disaster itself, but how the media reported it as well.
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