Marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster, 'Titanic Lives' is an utterly compelling exploration of the lives of the passengers and crew on board the most famous ship in history.

The RMS Titanic was built as one of the world's largest and most luxurious liners. A marine Ritz, it was a 45,000-tonne hotel of thin steel plates, travelling at a speed of 21 knots across the North Atlantic.

On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg, sustaining a 300-feet gash as six compartments were wrenched open to the sea. In little over two hours, the palatial Titanic nose-dived to the bottom of the ocean. Over 1,500 people perished in the freezing waters.

Who were the people who by a cruel twist of fate happened to be travelling on the ship? In this original and timely book, Richard Davenport-Hines views the great liner as a paradigm of Edwardian soceity. At the bottom of the ship was the steerage class, filled with emigrants hoping for a better life in the New World. Above them were hundreds of second-class passengers buoyed up by their prosperous respectability. On the upper decks were the hereditary rich and those of inconceivable wealth - Americans like John Jacob Astor IV, who was found with GBP2000 and $4000 in sodden notes in his pockets.

Bringing together over 2,000 passengers and crew from every class and every continent, 'Titanic Lives' tells their stories, re-creating the complexities, disparities and tensions of life one hundred years ago.