Rare titanic brochure surfaces after more than 100 years

The brochure was specifically aimed at rich first and second class passengers and contains colourful images of the most luxurious parts of the doomed liner.

The pictures show the scale and grandeur of the interior of the biggest ship built in the world at the time.

The brochure walks the reader through different areas of the ‘unsinkable’ liner, from the opulent reception room, to the Louis XVI period designed restaurant and the promenade deck.

As passengers move from the deck to the entrance hall where ‘as if by magic, we at once lose the feeling we are on board a ship and seem instead to be entering the hall of some great house on shore.”

The sumptuous state rooms that cost the equivalent of £40,000 to stay in are featured as are other amenities on board such as the Turkish baths, and smoking rooms.

A major selling point in the booklet is the Titanic’s famous grand staircase that featured heavily in the 1997 movie starring Kate Winslet.

It states: “In the middle of the hall roses a gracefully curving staircase. The staircase is one of the principal features of the ship and will be greatly admired as being, without doubt, the finest piece of workmanship of its kind afloat.”

And it spins a lifestyle the reader is either well used to or aspires to.

The beautiful reception room is described as the place the first class passengers will ‘foregather for that important moment upon an ocean-going ship – l’heure ou l’on dine – to regale each other with their day’s experiences in the racquet court, the gymnasium, the card room or the Turkish bath.

“Some of the passengers will await their friends seated upon the capacious Chesterfields or grandfather chairs.”

Just 325 first class passengers were able to make the most of these opulent surroundings out of the 2,400 passengers on board Titanic for its ill-fated maiden voyage in April 1912.

Four days after leaving Southampton the liner struck an iceberg in the north Atlantic and sunk with the loss of 1,517 lives.

Hundreds of copies of the brochure would have been printed off and issued by travel agents in the months leading up to the trip.

A rare surviving copy is now tipped to sell for £10,000 after being put up for auction with Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers of Devizes.

Andrew Aldridge said: “These brochures were created to put bums on seats.

“Anything to do with White Star Line was always of the highest order. Titanic was their flagship and was the biggest and best ship in the world and these brochures reflect that.

“They would have been very pleasing to the eye to first and second class passengers and described a lifestyle on board that they wanted to be part of.

“The opulence of the ship really comes out, not just on the colour pictures but also the words used to describe the surroundings.

“These brochures are unusual and they do attract a great deal of interest because they contain contemporary images of the interior of the Titanic that now sits at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

Mr Aldridge said the picture of the Turkish baths shows up the pale blue wall tiles that were recorded when movie director James Cameron dived on the wreck using a submersible craft.

The brochure is being sold on October 20.