Mark Chirnside’s new book is about the legendary Cunard liner Aquitania . (Click here for an exclusive preview) .

Mark’s fourth maritime book for Tempus Publishing (and fifth book overall) is entitled RMS Aquitania: The ‘Ship Beautiful.’ He originally contemplated writing about Aquitania prior to starting work on his detailed Olympic book in September 2001, yet his love of the Olympic got the better of him. Sharing the same basic format as RMS Majestic: The ‘Magic Stick,’ the intention has been to produce a lavishly-illustrated history of Cunard’s famous liner.

The company’s answer to the White Star Line when they launched Olympic and Titanic, Aquitania’s design drew upon experience with Lusitania and Mauretania, Cunard’s numerous examinations of the Olympic in 1911, modifications to Titanic (such as the glass-enclosed forward promenade deck) and the success of vessels like HAPAG’s Amerika (1905). Unlike a number of these vessels, Aquitania went on to live a long and popular life, in service until the end of 1949. She was the only major liner of her ilk to serve in both of the world wars.

While other volumes have already been produced chronicling this liner’s history, the focus here differs – firstly in the focus on illustrations, and secondly in the text itself. A number of little-known facts and anecdotes have been recorded, while much of the information contained in the book has never been published before.

Highlights include previously unpublished accounts of those who sailed on her, appendices containing a variety of statistical and technical information that is rarely seen, and many rare photographs and illustrations. In places a detailed day-by-day and even voyage-by-voyage account, overall the intention has been to provide a concise yet (hopefully) readable and informative account of his wonderful ship. The book has already been delivered to the publishers and will be published later in 2008.

Why not look at the RMS Aquitania Captains page?

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Chirnside, Mark. RMS Aquitania: The ‘Ship Beautiful’. Tempus Publishing; August 2008.

PUBLISHER’S TEXT AND PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Of the fourteen four stackers built, Aquitania was one of the longest lived and the only one to survive two world wars. Launched in 1913, she was the third four funneled liner for Cunard, and the only one not to have a Government subsidy. Aquitania entered commercial service in May 1914 and was christened ‘The Ship Beautiful’ thanks to her elegant interiors. Unfortunately, she was soon called up for war service as an armed merchant cruiser and her beautiful interiors either stripped out or covered over.

A varied career as an armed merchant cruiser, hospital ship and troopship finally led into a successful period as a transatlantic liner and cruise ship before war intervened once more. Aquitania sailed again from 1939-46 as a troopship to far flung parts of the British Empire. From the USA, Canada and Australia to the Red Sea and South Africa, she helped ensure the shortening of the war by transporting hundreds of thousands of troops to where they were needed.

Aquitania then went from carrying troops across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to taking war brides and their children to their new homes. She re-entered commercial service as an emigrant ship, taking passengers to Canada and the USA until she was finally withdrawn in 1950, after thirty-six years of service under the Cunard flag. Mark Chirnside tells the story in words and pictures of one of Cunard’s finest liners, from her birth to her death, a journey that began on the Clyde and which then took Aquitania three million miles only to finish within twenty miles of her birthplace.