RMS TITANIC | Amy Stanley, eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic

RMS TITANIC--STANLEY, AMY

First-hand account of the Titanic disaster

beginning with her departure ("...there seemed to be an enormous crowd who all seemed bent on cheering us no doubt the new boat attracted them I was very fortunate to secure a berth with a lady & child … we kept together whole of the voyage even on the Carpathia...”), the pleasures of the voyage until the events of 14-15 April ("...about 11 oclock I feel a great shaking I jumped up put on a dressing gown..."), her gradual realisation of the seriousness of the situation and escape with a group of fellow passengers to the chaotic deck where sailors throw her into a crowded lifeboat ("...the shouts of officers ordering the men back I heard shots but the cries of keep back were awful as it was a man managed to jump from the deck into our boat landed next me..."), the sinking of the ship, the hours in the cold night waiting for rescue, the sighting of the Carpathia ("...we started cheering but the sailors told us to stop as we might get Excited and overbalance the boat..."), and her journey with fellow survivors on to New York, 6 pages, large 8vo (162 x 260mm, Eaton’s Highland Linen watermark), [1912], staining, tears with crude adhesive tape repairs 

"...there was an awful noise she broke in the middle the people sliding where she broke into the water that accounted for the awfull screaming which followed which noise I could not get rid of for some time then the whole of the parts went down but one part came and floated for a time..."

A HITHERTO UNKNOWN ACCOUNT OF THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC DESCRIBING THE TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE OF A YOUNG SURVIVOR. Although the writer is not named, provenance and circumstantial detail allow her to be identified as Amy Stanley, a young Oxfordshire woman with a third class ticket who was emigrating to Connecticut for work, whose berth on E deck neighboured several other unaccompanied women, mostly with children. This narrative matches Amy Stanley's letter to her parents in many precise details but also provides additional information (she places herself in Lifeboat 15, whereas it has previously thought she was in Collapsible boat C). This narrative was written in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy when she was still unsure if telegrams sent from the Carpathia had reached her family. It originally accompanied a letter, almost certainly to her brother Fred; she adds a note at the end saying that she expects him to send her picture postcards in return.

PROVENANCE:

Walter Frederick Stanley of Wolvercote, Oxfordshire (1894-1970); thence by descent

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