The Titanic Letters

Jan 28, 2026 3:00 PM

Author:Various,Full Cast,Ciarán Hinds,Gloria Hunniford,Patrick Kielty,Eamonn Holmes,Amanda Burton,Frances Tomelty,Paul Rankin

The Titanic Letters

42 letters written by Titanic passengers and crew, plus two documentaries relating survivors' stories and bringing the tragedy to life through the voices of the wireless operators

The largest, most luxurious liner in the world, the RMS Titanic captured the public's imagination. But four days into her maiden voyage, on 14 April 1912, she hit an iceberg and sank, taking the lives of over 1500 people.

This commemorative anthology opens with the emotional letters from the individuals who were there that fateful night - those who lived, and those who died. They talk of life on board the ship, describing its size, opulence and vaunted 'unsinkabiity'; write about the friends they've made; make disparaging remarks about fellow travellers; and send fond messages of love, signed with a dozen kisses.

Here, too, are heartrending eyewitness accounts of the shipwreck and its aftermath, written from the safety of the rescue ship Carpathia. Among them are letters from a woman who lost her mind on the Titanic, a newlywed who left the ship a widow, a message in a bottle from a despairing 19-year-old - and a missive accusing an unknown man of having dressed as a woman to get on a lifeboat. Introduced by Ciaran Hinds, who also reveals the writers' fate, each letter is read by a different celebrity, including Amanda Burton, Patrick Kielty, Eamonn Holmes, Christine Bleakley and Gloria Hunniford.

Also included are two fascinating documentaries. Omnibus: Titanic - The Unsinkable Legend, asks why the story of the doomed ship still fascinates us today. Including an interview with Titanic survivor Eva Hart, who was just seven years old when the ship went down, it looks at the influence the iconic ship has had on media and culture in the 100 years since its sinking.

And in Discovery: Titanic - In Her Own Words, Sean Coughlan narrates the Marconi wireless operators' version of the Titanic disaster. Converting their Morse code into speech synthesis, this enthralling programme gives us a remarkable 'black box recording' of the event, as the young operators in the vicinity frantically communicated with one another across the freezing expanses of the North Atlantic in an effort to mount a rescue mission.

Poignant, absorbing and deeply affecting, this unique radio collection reveals the human stories behind the terrible maritime tragedy.

Production credits

Titanic Letters

Presented by Ciaran Hinds

Read by Amanda Burton, Patrick Kielty, Eamonn Holmes, Brian Kennedy, Dame Mary Peters, James Ellis, Christine Bleakley, John Linehan, Colin Murphy, Martin Lynch, Donna Traynor, Eddie Irvine, Gloria Hunniford, Dr Stephen Myers, Ian McElhenny, Phil Coulter, Bronagh Gallagher, Barry Douglas, Ciaran McMenamin, Frances Tomelty, Paul Rankin, Dana, Noel Thompson, Tim Wheeler, Maggie Cronin, Dan Gordon, Janet Gray, Susan Lynch, Colin Bateman, Wendy Austin, Marie Jones, Baroness May Blood, Conleth Hill, Charles Lawson, Stella McCusker, William Crawley, Olivia Nash, Brian Keenan, Sarah Travers, Glenn Patterson, Leila Webster, Ciaran Hinds

First broadcast BBC Radio Foyle & BBC Radio Ulster, 9-22 April 2012

Omnibus: Titanic - The Unsinkable Legend

With Eva Hart, Ronnie Brock, Bob Pryor, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Bill McQuitty

First broadcast BBC World Service, 13 January 1998

Discovery: Titanic - In Her Own Words

Presented by Sean Coughlan

Conceived and created by Susanne Weber

Produced by Alex Mansfield

First broadcast BBC World Service, 9 April 2012

Reviews

This gorgeous book has everything! Mysteries, misunderstandings, arguments, reconciliations, kindness, love and lots of PENGUINS!

—— Clare Pooley, author of The Authenticity Project

Just what the doctor ordered . . . Funny, wise, touching. I loved it.

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So many readers are set to fall in love with this charming story.

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Call of the Penguins sparkles with wit, courage and kindness. This is a heart-warming journey into the highs and lows of human nature. I loved it!

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—— Daily Express (on Away with the Penguins)

A glorious, life-affirming story. I read it in a day.

—— Clare Mackintosh (on Away with the Penguins)

A touching, uplifting tale.

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A gorgeous read full of hope, with a cast of characters who will delight!

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The perfect pick-me-up for right now, a warm-hearted, humorous and emotional read.

—— Phaedra Patrick, author of The Library of Lost and Found

Nolan's writing gleams with dark precision . . . What Acts of Desperation illuminates best is the chasm, sadly still enormous, between feminist politics and personal predicaments of love, sex and romance.

—— Los Angeles Times

Megan Nolan is a huge literary talent, and her first novel is a love story like no other.

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Remarkable . . . a stunning meditation on the ways in which society moulds female desire . . . Lyrical and raw, Acts of Desperation is a vital intervention into the genre.

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Nolan's ability to illustrate the rawest thoughts, neurosis and murky emotions is unrivalled. It's a read that will get inside your core.

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One of the most anticipated books of the year . . . Lives up to the hype.

—— AnOther Magazine *The Literary Fiction to Look Out for in 2021*

A darkly rich and heady exploration of hunger and unraveling, Acts of Desperation is unashamed and honest. It questions the truest way to inhabit a body and shows us the horror and the beauty in learning to be alone.

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—— Hannah Hillyer , Stellar

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—— Harriet Johnston , Daily Mail

[A] gripping debut novel... The writing is fearless and gut punching... Love, pain and pleasure are so closely entwined that it's almost impossible to extrapolate which one is feeding the other.

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Nolan's narrator rips and picks at the threads and scabs of desire, hedonism and self-worth... in this searing first novel, Nolan is holding up a fantastically intense mirror to her protagonist and letting us make up our own mind about whether or not we will look away.

—— Tara Joshi , Quietus

There are flashes of brilliance throughout, reminiscent of John Berger.

—— Stephanie Sy-Quia , Times Literary Supplement

Acts of Desperation creates an immersive experience of toxic romance through a suffocating and addictive narrative.

—— New Statesman

Painful, sharp and absorbing.

—— Susie Mesure , i

A reflection on compulsion, addiction and what it's like to exist as a young woman in a world that is hostile to you. Read the first page and you won't be able to stop.

—— Irish Times

Nolan...stakes out thrilling new territory in an intense, unflinching novel that is always intelligent and utterly unafraid of ugliness.

—— Claire Lowdon , Spectator, *Books of the Year*

A devastating stripping back of the gendered and politicised conditions that shape desire, a revelation of the unnerving ways we are made vulnerable to others in unequal systems. Its crisp, knowing prose is unparalleled, its anger remarkable.

—— Anahit Behrooz , Skinny, *Books of the Year*

Nolan's intelligent, elegant first novel, a gripping portrait of love turned toxic.

—— Daily Telegraph

The star feature of Nolan's narration is her ability to cut through received ideas about women, relationships and even rape. Her headlong, fearless prose, feels like salt wind on cracked lips. You wince and you thrill.

—— Claire Lowdon , Sunday Times

A raw read of vulnerability, desperation, and most definitely a new voice in fiction

—— Chloe Brown , Cosmopolitan

A thrilling read...if you want a visceral, honest, unputdownable summer read then this is it. You'll devour it in a day.

—— Stylist, *Summer Reads of 2022*

A very elegant novel, with coercive control at the core. She has such a strong voice and not a sentence is extraneous

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I read this in one go... I found it raw, honest, brutal and real.

—— Lykke Li , Observer

Written with acerbic style and wit, this is an intoxicatingly good look at romantic obsession, delusion and desire.

—— i

Beautifully written…and the short chapters keep things moving at an addictively fast pace. Most importantly, it’s shamelessly real

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