author
Jr. Charles Emelius Lauriat
1874–1937
A Boston bookseller and amateur sailor, he is best remembered for the gripping survivor's account he wrote after escaping the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. His memoir helped preserve one of the clearest firsthand records of that disaster.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Massachusetts in 1874, Charles Emelius Lauriat Jr. came from a Boston bookselling family and later worked in the rare-book trade himself. Harvard's Houghton Library describes him as a bookseller who specialized in rare books, and his surviving papers show how closely his life was tied to both publishing and literary culture.
Lauriat is most closely associated with The Lusitania's Last Voyage, his account of surviving the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915. Written from direct experience, the book became one of the best-known personal narratives of the tragedy and remains valuable for readers interested in eyewitness history.
He died in 1937. Though he did not leave behind a large body of famous works, his reputation endures because he captured an extraordinary moment with clarity, immediacy, and the perspective of someone who lived through it.