The sinking of the Titanic claimed some 1,500 lives, among them a gallery of early 20th-century A-list celebrities.1 Captains of industry John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim both went down with the ship, as did Macys co-owner Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, who refused to leave his side.2 The popular American mystery writer Jacques Futrelle, the American painter and sculptor Francis Millet, and Maj. Archibald Butt, friend and aide to then-President William Howard Taft, were lost as well.3 But for all the boldface names among the Titanics victims, many more might have been aboard, but for the vagaries of fate.4 Among them were:

Theodore Dreiser5

The novelist, then 40, considered returning from his first European holiday aboard the Titanic; an English publisher talked him out of the plan, persuading the writer that taking another ship would be less expensive.

Dreiser was at sea aboard the liner6 Kroonland when he heard the news. He recalled his reaction the following year in his memoir, A Traveler at Forty: “To think of a ship as immense as the Titanic, new and bright, sinking in endless fathoms of water.7 And the two thousand passengers routed like rats from their berths8 only to float helplessly in miles of water, praying and crying!”

Guglielmo Marconi9

The Italian inventor, wireless telegraphy10 pioneer and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics was offered free passage on Titanic but had taken the Lusitania three days earlier. As his daughter Degna later explained, he had paperwork to do and preferred the public stenographer aboard that vessel.11

Three years later, Marconi would narrowly escape another famous maritime disaster.12 He was on board the Lusitania in April 1915 on the voyage immediately before it was sunk by a German U-boat in May.13

Milton Snavely Hershey14

The man behind the Hersheys Milk Chocolate Bar, Hersheys Kisses, Hersheys Syrup had spent the winter in France and planned to sail home on the Titanic. Fortunately for Hershey, business back home apparently intervened15, and he and his wife instead caught a ship that was sailing earlier, the German liner Amerika. The Amerika would earn its own footnote16 in the disaster, as one of several ships to send the Titanic warnings of ice in its path.

J. Pierpont Morgan

The legendary 74-year-old financier, nicknamed the “Napoleon of Wall Street,” had helped create General Electric and U.S. Steel.17

Among his varied business interests was the International Mercantile Marine, the shipping combine that controlled Britains White Star Line, owner of the Titanic. Morgan attended the ships launching in 1911 and had a personal suite on board with his own private promenade deck and a bath equipped with specially designed cigar holders.18 He was reportedly booked on the maiden voyage but instead remained at the French resort of Aix to enjoy his morning massages and sulfur baths.19

“Monetary losses amount to nothing in life,”20 he told a visiting New York Times reporter days after the sinking. “It is the loss of life that counts. It is that frightful death.”

Henry Clay Frick

The Pittsburgh steel baron was a business associate of fellow non-passenger J.P. Morgan.21 He canceled his passage on the Titanic when his wife sprained her ankle and had to be hospitalized in Italy.22

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt

The 34-year-old multimillionaire sportsman, an heir to the Vanderbilt shipping and railroad empire, was returning from a trip to Europe and canceled his passage on the Titanic so late that some early newspaper accounts listed him as being on board.23 Vanderbilt lived on to become one of the most celebrated casualties24 of the Lusitania sinking three years later.

John R. Mott

Though perhaps less well known today than the others on the list, Mott was an influential evangelist25, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. He and a colleague were supposedly offered free passage on the Titanic by a White Star Line official interested in their work but declined and instead took the more humble26 liner Lapland. According to a biography27, when they reached New York and heard about the disaster, “It is said that the two men looked at each other and one voiced their common thought: ‘The Good Lord must have more work for us to do. ”

1. claim:（戰(zhàn)爭、事故等）奪?。ㄉ籄-list:一流人物。

2. 工業(yè)巨頭約翰·雅各布·阿斯特四世和本杰明·古根海姆都與船俱殞，同遭不幸的還有梅西百貨公司的共同所有人伊西多·施特勞斯及其妻子,她拒絕離開他（獨自逃生）。Macys: 梅西百貨公司，美國的著名連鎖百貨公司。

3. 深受歡迎的美國推理作家杰克·福翠爾、美國畫家和雕塑家弗朗西斯·米勒以及時任總統(tǒng)威廉·霍華德·塔夫脫的朋友兼助手阿奇博爾德·布特少校也同時罹難。

4. boldface: 黑體字，此處指遇難者的名字用黑體字突出；vagaries:［復數(shù)］（局面、行為等）不可捉摸（異常）的變化，變化莫測。

5. Theodore Dreiser: 西奧多·德萊賽（1871—1945），美國著名小說家，代表作有《嘉莉妹妹》等。

6. liner: 郵輪，大客輪。

7. memoir: 回憶錄；immense: 巨大的；fathom:英尋（測量水深的單位，等于6英尺或約1.8米）。

8. berth:（船或火車上的）鋪位，艙位。

9. Guglielmo Marconi: 古列爾莫·馬可尼(1874—1937)，意大利電氣工程師，無線電之父。

10. wireless telegraphy: 無線電報。

11.paperwork: 文書工作；stenographer:速記員；vessel: 船。

12. 三年之后，馬可尼又僥幸躲過另一起著名海難。

13. voyage: 航行；U-boat:（尤指用于第二次世界大戰(zhàn)的）德國潛艇, U潛艇。

14. Milton Snavely Hershey: 彌爾頓·斯內(nèi)夫利·赫爾希，美國最大的巧克力生產(chǎn)商——赫爾希食品公司的創(chuàng)始人，下文提到的Bar、Kisses和Syrup都是該公司生產(chǎn)的食品。

15. intervene: 干預。

16. footnote: 腳注。

17. 這位74歲的傳奇金融家，綽號“華爾街的拿破侖”，曾協(xié)助創(chuàng)立了通用電氣和美國鋼鐵。

18. suite: 套間；promenade deck:散步甲板。

19. maiden: 首次的；resort: 度假勝地；massage: 按摩；sulfur:硫磺。

20. monetary: 貨幣的，金錢的；amount to: 意味著。

21. 這位匹茲堡的鋼鐵大亨是（上文提到的）J.P. Morgan 的商業(yè)合作伙伴。Pittsburgh: 匹茲堡（美國賓西法尼亞州西南部城市，是美國的鋼鐵工業(yè)中心）；baron:大亨。

22. sprain: 扭傷（關節(jié)）；hospitalize:送……住院。

23. multimillionaire: 大富豪，巨富；heir: 繼承人；Vanderbilt shipping and railroad empire: （美國）范德比爾特航運鐵路帝國。

24. casualty:（事故或戰(zhàn)爭中的）傷者，死者。

25. evangelist: 巡回布道者。

26. humble: 簡陋的。

27. biography: 傳記。

28. descendant: 后代。

29. villain: 惡棍，壞人。

30. Goodyear Tire and Rubber:（美國）固特異輪胎橡膠公司，始建于1898年，是世界上規(guī)模最大的輪胎生產(chǎn)公司。

Famous Passengers Booked for the Ships Next Voyage

The Titanics return trip to England was scheduled to begin on April 20. Among the more famous names who had apparently booked passage:

Henry Adams, descendant28 of two presidents and author of The Education of Henry Adams.

John Alden Dix, then governor of New York.

J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line. A survivor of the Titanic disaster, Ismay was portrayed as a villain29 in many accounts in part for the ships shortage of lifeboats and for getting himself safely into one.

Guglielmo Marconi. Having skipped the maiden voyage, Marconi had apparently made arrangements to take the second.

Frank Seiberling, founder of Goodyear Tire and Rubber30.