author
Jr. Charles Emelius Lauriat
1874–1937
Best known for a vivid firsthand account of the Lusitania disaster, this Boston bookseller wrote from direct experience and an obvious love of the sea. His surviving work offers a rare, immediate view of one of the defining maritime tragedies of the early 20th century.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1874, Charles Emelius Lauriat Jr. was an American writer, amateur sailor, and part of the Boston bookselling world connected with the Charles E. Lauriat Company. The record available through public literary sources is slim, but it consistently ties him to bookselling as well as writing.
He is remembered above all for The Lusitania's Last Voyage, his account of the torpedoing and sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania on May 7, 1915. Contemporary and archival sources describe him as an experienced traveler who was aboard the ship on a business trip, and his book remains the work most closely associated with his name.
Lauriat died in 1937. Though he does not have a large surviving bibliography, his place in maritime and publishing history endures through that eyewitness narrative, which still attracts readers interested in ocean travel, disaster history, and personal accounts of world-changing events.