Every Man for Himself, published in 1996, is a brilliant retelling of the story of the Titanic. It is Beryl Bainbridge's second historical novel and one of her favorites. She deals with the decadent life of upper class Edwardians in an ideal setting: the most opulent ship afloat. Titanic's second class accommodations match other liners' first class, and her first-class areas, where readers spend most of the time aboard, defy comparison. She is the only vessel that can boast a Turkish bath.
Bainbridge incorporates in the novel some of the social elite of England and America who actually made that fateful voyage, and her portrayal of them, mostly older folks of fabulous wealth, deftly captures, in very few words, what dry history records about them.
Bainbridge blends them splendidly with characters from her imagination, largely younger people, chief.....
