Violet Jessop’s Titanic Survivor

I usually try to profile new-ish releases when I review books, movies, or TV shows here, but I found this 25-year-old memoir so compelling that I decided to make an exception for it.

The Titan submersible tragedy earlier this summer reignited my childhood fascination with all things Titanic. I read a perhaps unhealthy amount of books about the sinking when I was a kid and still retain a perhaps abnormal amount of random trivia about the ship, but I discovered we had a book in the system that I was quite unfamiliar with–the memoir of a stewardess who survived. I was intrigued enough to check it out, and I am so glad I did because it’s a fantastic read, regardless of your level of interest in Titanic.

In fact, Violet covers Titanic in only 3 chapters. (The misleading title was pretty clearly an attempt by the publisher to capitalize on the 90s interest in all things Titanic.) The rest is devoted to her unusual childhood and her very long career at sea, which also saw her travel the world, serve in WWI as a nurse, and survive yet another famous sinking.

Even the backstory of how the book came to be is unusual. Violet wrote the manuscript in the 1930s. Any efforts she made to publish it were unsuccessful, and it went unnoticed until the 1990s, when her family started shopping it around, decades after her death. A maritime historian–John Maxtone-Graham–took on the project of editing it. He had his own connection to Violet, once interviewing her about her experiences on Titanic. But as he notes in his introduction, the real reason he was so intrigued by Violet was because his mother still remembered her name decades after one voyage with her as a stewardess because she’d been so fantastic at her job and had such a vibrant, pleasant personality.

And that facet of Violet Jessop is what really shines through in this book and makes it such a great read. She had a remarkable life and experienced some really big moments in history, but she writes about it with a perceptive mind, a keen eye for detail, a great sense of humor and compassion, and a very readable style that not every eyewitness to history possesses.

Maxtone-Graham, for the most part, lets Violet have her say and limits himself largely to explanatory notes to expand on historical background. As he notes, since the manuscript was discovered after Violet’s death, there was no opportunity to work with her on expanding sections or clarifying things. If he doesn’t know, he says so. The result does mean some of the chapters are a bit choppy, but that actually also manages to be part of the book’s charm.

Along the way, she writes about her childhood in Argentina, where her immigrant Irish parents raised her, before the family relocated to the United Kingdom during her teen years. Violet went to sea as a stewardess mainly because the tips helped support her widowed mother and younger siblings. And the sea is where most of Violet’s story takes place.

Beyond detailing her experiences surviving both the Titanic and Britannic sinkings (the latter was particularly harrowing for her and left her with lifelong injuries), she also has a lot of colorful stories about life working onboard ocean liners in the early 20th century. Some of them are sad–stewards and stewardesses tended to get little respect from the sailors and Violet herself has a very frustrating romance with a ship engineer who has little respect for her profession. (You could do better, Violet!) But many of them are hilarious as they profile workplace misadventures and bizarre and/or demanding passengers.

Her chapters on Titanic are particularly poignant, chronicling how she and her coworkers went from being enthusiastic about their beautiful new luxurious workplace to slightly confused about word of a collision (she admits she and a friend spent time bickering about what to wear since they didn’t realize the urgency) to absolutely horrified as it became clearer that the ship and many of her cherished friends she’d worked with for years were doomed.

Still, Violet was nothing if not adaptable, hardy, and practical. She was back at sea on the same run between England and America within 2 months, and when she found herself on another sinking ship a few years later, she calmly packed her toothbrush and a breakfast roll before making her way on deck.

If you’re interested in history or just a good memoir from any time period, definitely check out Violet Jessop’s! It’s a fantastic read.

What have you been reading lately? What’s your favorite memoir? What’s your favorite book about Titanic? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on this item or to place it on hold.