‘An evocative and exciting collection of rare and unusual images of the vessel known as “the ship beautiful”.’ – Shipping Today and Yesterday

RMS Aquitania was in service for decades, and was very much beloved. The third in Cunard Line’s ‘grand trio’ of express liners, running mate of the lost Lusitania and the legendary Mauretania (1907), Aquitania was the last surviving four-funnelled ocean liner.

Aquitania was pressed into service during both world wars and was one of the longest serving passenger liners of the twentieth century. She was also one of the most elegant, nicknamed the ‘ship beautiful’. Maritime authors J. Kent Layton and Tad Fitch have collaborated to put together the most evocative and exciting collection of rare and unusual imagery relating to this historic vessel ever shown.

‘... an evocative and exciting collection of rare and unusual images of the vessel known as “the ship beautiful”.’

J. KENT LAYTON and TAD FITCH have been researching maritime history for over 30 years. Some of J. Kent Layton’s titles include The Unseen Mauretania (1907), Transatlantic Liners, and Conspiracies at Sea: Titanic and Lusitania. Together with Tad Fitch and Bill Wormstedt, he co-authored the groundbreaking volume On a Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic (nominated for the 2012 Mountbatten Maritime Award), Recreating Titanic and Her Sisters: A Visual History, and Titanic: Solving the Mysteries. Tad Fitch has co-authored such books as Report Into the Loss of SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal, Into the Danger Zone: The Lusitania, First Battle of the Atlantic, and Liners During the Great War, and with Kent Layton, Michael Poirier, Tom Lynskey, and Levi Rourke, the forthcoming Lusitania: An Illustrated Biography two-volume set.