George Bernard Shaw's Remarks
About the
Titanic Disaster

Playwright and all-around wit, George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1957) loathed “heroics and the glamor of romance” and in no conceivable circumstances would he find an excuse for them, the facts of the Titanic disaster were no exception; it was only by lying, he insisted, that the newspapers made them out to be heroic.

He illustrated his point by referring to the published survivor account of Lady Duff-Gordon (1863 – 1935):

“She described how she escaped in the captain’s boat. There was one other woman in it and ten men, twelve all told, one woman for every five men.”

“…Romance requires that all the men, except the foreigners, shall be heroes, that the foreigners shall be kept from a cowardly stampede by British pistols and that the captain shall be a super-hero…”

Shaw makes reference to the survivor account as reported by Lady Duff-Gordon; that article can be read here.

Click here to read various witty remarks by George Bernard Shaw.

Click here to read additional primary source articles about the Titanic disaster.

Click here to read the socialist ramblings of George Bernard Shaw.