Titanic Survivor.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

by Violet Jessop / edited and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham / Sheridan House, 1997, pp. 238, $23.95

** Molly Brown earned the sobriquet "Unsinkable" by surviving the Titanic disaster. Violet Jessop, by similar standards, is deserving of the epithet "Doubly Unsinkable." As a stewardess aboard Titanic and during World War I, a nurse on its sister ship, Britannic (victim of either a German mine or torpedo), she twice huddled in a small boat and watched as each vessel sank beneath the ocean's surface. Undaunted, she would continue in service on the high seas for many years to come.

Thanks to the public's seemingly insatiable interest in anything pertaining to Titanics tragic saga, Jessop's memoirs have found their way into print. Her reminiscences, written in 1934, surfaced in 1966, a quarter-century after her death. Originally prepared for a literary competition, the manuscript was sent to marine historian John Maxtone-Graham by Jessop's nieces. He, in turn, edited and annotated her writing, filling in some of the historical gaps and placing her words in proper perspective.

A number of her memories as a crew member for 42 years at sea, primarily as a stewardess, are amusing and interesting, especially anecdotes about passengers and crews of the ships she served on. While some of her prose is amateurish, at times her dramatic experiences produced striking literary touches in her writing, as in this...