Walter Lord author page

Walter Lord biography

Walter Lord was an American historian and author best known for his narrative accounts of major events in twentieth-century history. He studied history at Princeton University and later completed a law degree at Yale. During the Second World War he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, serving in Washington and London, before moving into publishing and advertising.

Lord’s first book, The Fremantle Diary, was published in 1954. His breakthrough came the following year with A Night to Remember, his account of the sinking of RMS Titanic. Lord interviewed 63 survivors and combined their recollections with documentary research to reconstruct the events of the disaster. The book became a bestseller and was adapted into the 1958 British film of the same name.

He continued to use eyewitness testimony and detailed research in books about other major historical events. Day of Infamy, published in 1957, reconstructed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, while Incredible Victory examined the Battle of Midway. His other books included The Past That Would Not Die, about the integration of the University of Mississippi, and The Dawn’s Early Light, about the War of 1812 and the attack on Washington.

Lord returned to Titanic in The Night Lives On, first published in the United States in 1986. Written after renewed investigation of the disaster and the discovery of the wreck, the book revisited questions surrounding the collision, the evacuation, the nearby Californian and the conduct of those involved. Together with A Night to Remember, it became one of Lord’s two major studies of the Titanic disaster.