98 years ago this week --- May 1 to May 7, 1915 --- the Lusitania was making its final voyage, and no one recounts it better than Diana Preston in her epic work, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy. This was the work I chiefly relied upon in my research project about the subject. It provided all the known details about the last first class passenger list of this great ocean liner. The reader gets to know such maverick personalities as Elbert Hubbard, the country philosopher and best-selling writer who was the bohemian among the rich and well-connected. He brought his essay aboard about the Kaiser entitled, "Who Lifted the Lid Off Of Hell?"and challenged all the passengers to read it. He constantly joked that the Kaiser would be found aboard with his torpedo just to claim he torpedoed the ship. Meet the famous Broadway producer of many plays, Charles Frohman, who just before the waves washed him off the listing Boat Deck recited lines from Peter Pan, "Why should we fear death? It's the greatest adventure life presents to us." Socialize with Alfred Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest men in America who was going to England to donate cars to the British Red Cross and who gave his lifejacket away to a lady at the last moment. Encounter the French-American actress, Rita Jolivet, who was to survive. She made reservations at the last moment to see her brother in France who was about to leave for the Front. She declared that she would shoot herself with her pearl-handled pistol if she landed in the ocean. She couldn't swim. In only eighteen minutes the great ocean liner was to turn on its starboard side and vanish under the waves. During that short space of time between the torpedo striking at 2:10PM right after lunch on May 7 and the end a world of drama took place worthy of Shakespeare. Get your first row seat when you purchase this book.[[ASIN:B000IU0MLY Who Lifted the Lid Off of Hell?]]
by Linda Cargill, author of The Key to Lawrence