The Titanic has been called "an exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era," but that unique facet of her story has never been explored. Now historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of her fateful maiden crossing. Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage takes us behind the paneled doors of the ship's elegant, private suites to evoke a world both distant from and near to...

Brewster, who created several bestselling books on the "Titanic," uses original research to intertwine, for the first time, the lives of the rich and famous within the powerful arc of the ship's dramatic demise to convey the poignance of this epochal disaster.