As the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches in April 2012, the haunting story of the doomed liner has lost none of its allure. A host of commemorative events are planned for the centenary, and with many Titanic books set to hit the market, the question arises as to how this one will stand out from the others. Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage is a fresh take on this everpopular subject through the prism of the lives of the Titanic's first class passengers - woven into a gripping account of the ship's short life. The ship has often been called a microcosm of the Edwardian era - this has never been more true than it is presented in this book. In other accounts of the Titanic the ship is the protagonist and those on board merely bit part players. Here, its leading characters are moved into the foreground and their stories intertwined with the powerful narrative arc of the doomed voyage. The book probes into the lives of those on board in a way that no other account has done. Here we find some of Britain's and America's leading society figures engaged in illicit homosexual relationships, flaunting extra-marital affairs and openly risking scandal in the ballrooms of the world's most famous ship, oblivious of the disaster that lay in the seas ahead.