The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria: The Sinking of the World's Most Glamorous Ship

by Greg King, Penny Wilson

Overview

In the tradition of Erik Larson's Dead Wake comes The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria, about the sinking of the glamorous Italian ocean liner, including never-before-seen photos of the wreck today.

In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the tragedy of the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster of the modern age. Audiences witnessed everything that ensued after the unthinkable collision of two modern vessels equipped with radar: perilous hours of uncertainty; the heroic rescue of passengers; and the final gasp as the pride of the Italian fleet slipped beneath the Atlantic, taking some fifty lives with her. Her loss signaled the end of the golden age of ocean liner travel.

Now, Greg King and Penny Wilson offer a fresh look at this legendary liner and her tragic fate. Andrea Doria represented the romance of travel, the possibility of new lives in the new world, and the glamour of 1950s art, culture, and life. Set against a glorious backdrop of celebrity and La Dolce Vita, Andrea Doria's last voyage comes vividly to life in a narrative tightly focused on her passengers – Cary Grant's wife; Philadelphia's flamboyant mayor; the heiress to the Marshall Field fortune; and many brave Italian emigrants – who found themselves plunged into a desperate struggle to survive. The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria follows the effect this trauma had on their lives, and brings the story up-to-date with the latest expeditions to the wreck.

Drawing on in-depth research, interviews with survivors, and never-before-seen photos of the wreck as it is today, The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria is a vibrant story of fatal errors, shattered lives, and the triumph of the human spirit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250194534
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	268,939
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Greg King is the author of many internationally published works of history, including The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Majesty Magazine, Royalty Magazine and Royalty Digest. He lives in the Seattle area.

Penny Wilson is the author of Lusitania with Greg King and several internationally published works of history on late Imperial Russia. Her historical work has appeared in Majesty Magazine, Atlantis Magazine, and Royalty Digest. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three Huskies.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria:

"An extensively documented account of the 1956 sinking of the Italian luxury liner…Readers will find amazing stories of serendipitous luck, heroism, cowardice, and tragedy." —Booklist

Praise for Greg King and Penny Wilson:

“[King and Wilson] have succeeded marvelously, offering up a lucid and entertaining historical portrait.” —The Wall Street Journal for Twilight of Empire

"[A] fine example of historical detective work by the always-entertaining and-enlightening King-and-Wilson duo." —Booklist for Twilight of Empire

“A fascinating account of a ship, its passengers, and its terrible fate.” —Publishers Weekly for Lusitania

“Highly informed, compellingly written...there was a great deal more to the story than its heart-wrenching tragedy.” —The Wall Street Journal for Lusitania

"More than a chronicle of the tragedy, this offers a penetrating look at the end of the Edwardian era.” —Booklist for Lusitania

"This personal and political study, with its revisionist take, will be popular with historians and general readers alike and is highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review) for The Assassination of the Archduke

From the Publisher

2019-12-15
The history of an infamous shipwreck.

In 1956, in dense fog, the Italian ship Andrea Doria sank off the coast of Nantucket, within miles of its destination at the port of New York. King and Wilson (Twilight of Empire: The Tragedy of Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs, 2017, etc.) bring to their brisk, vivid narrative the prodigious research that marked their history of another maritime disaster, Lusitania (2015). But where the 1915 attack on a British liner by a German U-boat, killing all aboard, affected international hostilities, the sinking of the Andrea Doria did not even dent the fortunes of the liner industry. Most passengers and crew were rescued; later, many took other ocean voyages. Nor did the ship itself, which boasted beauty, modernity, and a special brand of Italian glamour, have the significance of the Titanic, which seemed a microcosm of social strata and aristocratic hubris. Passengers on the Andrea Doria included a few hugely wealthy Americans, traveling first class, returning from extended European holidays, while some Italians who boarded in Naples found themselves in claustrophobic accommodations. Most, though, were simply well-off. There were several clergymen and two actresses, one the wife of Cary Grant. The authors offer lively biographies of select passengers and crew, setting the stage for the drama that occurred at 11:11 p.m. on July 25, 1956, when the Swedish liner Stockholm, with an inexperienced seaman at its helm, smashed into the Andrea Doria's starboard side, "demolishing all in its path" and causing "a horrible cacophony of death and destruction." The authors masterfully evoke the anguish that ensued as passengers—panicked parents and frightened children, among them—crawled across the dangerously listing ship and perilously descended into lifeboats. Within hours, several rescue vessels arrived, including another luxury liner. The authors' recounting of the aftermath of the disaster—investigation, litigation, and the lives of many survivors—though informative, seems anticlimactic in comparison to the tense drama of the event.

An assured, absorbing history of a disaster.

Kirkus Reviews