Filson Young (1876–1938)

This was a beautifully written account by an American journalist in May 1912 covering the birth, life and death of the great ship. He brings across very well the microcosm of 1912 society that she represented. The author is quite an egalitarian, criticising the upper classes for their arrogance and hubris, while praising the silent heroism of the stokers and engineers who kept the ship alive for as long as they could to allow even the one third of those who did survive to do so. On the other show more hand, he also thinks that J Bruce Ismay is beyond criticism. There was nothing terribly new here, but this was an evocative and haunting piece of writing. 5/5 show less

Alexander Filson Young's book, initially published in 1918, has two functions:
1) To provide information about the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland, preferably of an intimate nature about how it felt to be pounding along at twenty-five knots, shooting at dots on the horizon, who were firing half-ton masses of explosives at you!
2) as an artifact to demonstrate what a WWI front-line tell all book could say to the audiences of the day.

I didn't find that "With the Battle-cruisers" did function show more number one particularly well. And I don't find FY an enchanting stylist. So it has to stand on its artifact value.
If you want to know what happened, I suggest the books by Arthur Marder or Geoffrey Bennett. If you are one of the small group interested in function two, well here it is, for what it was. show less

touring essay

Cornwall