J.Kent Layton author page

J. Kent Layton biography

J. Kent Layton is an American maritime historian and author specialising in the history of transatlantic ocean liners, including Titanic, Lusitania, Mauretania and Aquitania. He has researched Atlantic liners for more than three decades and is a member of the Titanic Research & Modeling Association.

Layton is the author of Transatlantic Liners, published by Shire Publications in 2012, which traces the development and decline of the great passenger liners from the late nineteenth century to the modern era. His other books include The Unseen Mauretania (1907) and Conspiracies at Sea: Titanic and Lusitania, which examines conspiracy theories surrounding the two maritime disasters.

With Tad Fitch and Bill Wormstedt, Layton co-wrote On a Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic. The detailed account follows Titanic from its design and construction through its maiden voyage and sinking, incorporating passenger and crew testimony alongside technical research. The book was nominated for the Maritime Foundation’s 2012 Mountbatten Maritime Award. The three authors later collaborated on Recreating Titanic and Her Sisters: A Visual History and Titanic: Solving the Mysteries.

Layton has also researched Cunard’s great early twentieth-century liners extensively. He co-wrote Lusitania: An Illustrated Biography (Volume One) with Tad Fitch, Michael Poirier, Thomas Lynskey and Levi Rourke, and collaborated with Fitch on The Unseen Aquitania: The Ship in Rare Illustrations, published by The History Press in 2024.