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Hugh Brewster is responsible for bestsellers about the Titanic, including The Discovery of the Titanic with Robert D. Ballard, its discoverer, and Titanic; An Illustrated History, which provided the inspiration for James Cameron’s epic movie Titanic. His ’07 book Carnation, Lily,, Lily Rose: The Story of a Painting was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by the Washington Post and was nominated for Canada’s two top literary awards.
Praise for Prisoner of Dieppe
"After reading Prisoner of Dieppe, I am convinced that despite his boyish good looks, Hugh Brewster must have been overseas in WWII...As a historian I have read many books about WWII but Prisoner of Dieppe made the war experience real for me in a unique way."
Canadian Children's Book News
Praise for Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose
“...compelling, essential reading.”
American Artist
“…this [is an] exquisite book.”
Washington Post
Praise for The Other Mozart
“…history at its best, exciting and illuminating.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“..an absorbing, beautifully illustrated biography.” Globe & Mail
HarperCollins Canada 2012
Crown/Random House US 2012
Gawsewitch France 2012
Piemme Italy 2012
Mondadori/Random House Spain 2012
Robson Press UK 2012
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Gilded Lives,
Fatal Voyage
The Titanic's First Class Passengers and Their World
The wealthy and glamorous passengers who boarded the Titanic, history’s most famous ship, provide “an exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era.” But in most books about the doomed voyage, their stories are incidental to the ship’s collision with an iceberg on April 14, 1912.
Hugh Brewster, who created several bestselling books on the Titanic, here uses original research to intertwine, for the first time, their lives within the powerful arc of the ship’s dramatic demise.
The cast includes artist and writer Frank Millet, the Director of Decorations for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair; White House aide Archie Butt; John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim; and Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon, a leading couturiere, among others. Through these vivid characters, we gain insight into the arts, politics, culture, and sexual mores of a world both distant and near to our own.
All converge on the boat deck of the Titanic during the ship’s final hours and we become witnesses to a heartbreakingly poignant scene where some survive and some do not.
The final chapters recount the rescue of the passengers in lifeboats by the Carpathia and the trip back to New York with only 705 of the more than 2,200 on board. Some men who survived lived under a cloud of cowardice. Others left a remarkable legacy that leads us to art collector Peggy Guggenheim whose father died when the Titanic sank, or to philanthropist Brooke Astor, daughter-in-law of John Jacob Astor, and how the circumstances of her recent death became “the last Astor scandal.”
The Titanic is one of the most enduring stories of all time. The focus on it will be intensified for the 100th anniversary of its sinking on April 14/15, 2012 for which hundreds of commemorative events are being scheduled.
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