“GOD HIMSELF COULD NOT SINK THIS SHIP”: A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, FIRST EDITION

LORD, Walter. A Night to Remember. New York: Henry Holt, (1955). Octavo, original half yellow cloth, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket. $600.

First edition of Lord’s dramatic and best-selling account of the sinking of the Titanic, with 32 pages of illustrations, in scarce original dust jacket.

"A Night to Remember made Lord's reputation as a writer who could bring drama, terror and suspense to his historical narratives. A successful television adaptation appeared in 1956 narrated by Claude Rains and in 1958 the book was the basis for a popular British-made film of the same name… The Titanic resurfaced in the collective imagination after World War II, a development clearly prompted by the appearance of Lord's book and the movie it inspired. It was Lord who gave the disaster its fullest retelling since 1912 and it was he who brought the Titanic's drama and significance alive for a modern audience… Lord treated the sinking of the Titanic as a watershed event, an epochal dividing line between the certainties of the 19th century and the confusions of the 20th" (New York Times). With 32 pages of black-and-white photographic illustrations. Gift inscription dated year of publication.

Book fine; scant edge-wear, tiny closed tear to lower front edge of bright about-fine dust jacket.