The Unseen Olympic: The Ship in Rare Illustrations Paperback – September 1, 2017

This book is absolutely wonderful. I have grown to love the RMS Olympic a very good deal, and there is a lot to know about her, but unfortunately, she is more often than not overshadowed by her fated sisters, Titanic and Britannic. Because I already do know a great deal about this ship, a lot of the photographs are things I have seen, but they are always a treat to have compiled together between two covers. What I have loved the most about this is the fact that Patrick Mylon did something I feel is very respectful to the ship and her history itself. As anyone who knows something about Olympic will understand is that in 1935, she was sent to the scrap-yard after the merger of White Star Line and Cunard Line. She was aging by then, and her fashion was no longer top-notch for the new Art Deco era. Many books that feature Olympic will show the horrible images of her final scrapping, which to any maritime enthusiast, are painful to see. A beautiful ship reduced to nothing is harsh. Mylon did not end the book with any of these photos though, instead quoting that he believed we should all be left with the look of her in life, and not what her final end is. He did describe it, but no illustrations follow it, which I am glad of.In all, I would surely say this is a great book for any fan of the RMS Olympic to buy. It's a great keepsake and well worth it's money.

The History Press's "unseen" series is rapidly becoming one of my favorite maritime history series, and the books I've purchased so far (Aquitania, Brittanic, Lusitania, and Mauretania) have all been very good or excellent. I didn't buy this one when it was originally published but was happy to see it come out in paperback. Let's just say I'm happy I didn't spend hundreds of dollars on a secondhand used copy.This is, by far, the weakest entry in the series. The text is very workmanlike and reads like an extended Wikipedia article. Although there are some interesting rare photographs and some nice (if not exactly rare) color postcards, the overall tone of this book is cold and distant. There are no candid shots of life onboard, no photos of the ship being built, no unique or humorous stories told by passengers or crew. The only human face to be found is that of Mary of Teck, displayed on a postcard of the Queen Mary. The Olympic depicted here is truly a ship without a soul. The majority of the pictures depict the ship's exterior in its entirety, usually in three-quarter view or profile. Although there are a few shots of the interiors sans passengers, the only "unposed" photo taken onboard merely depicts the last three funnels.Worst of all, for a book named "The Unseen Olympic," a shockingly large portion of precious page space is dedicated to other ships. Of the 172 illustrations, 48 (more than a quarter!) do not feature the Olympic in any shape or form. There are pictures of other White Star Line ships, the Olympic's British and German rivals, passenger tenders, the Queen Mary, the Bremen, the Titanic and Brittanic, and several ships only tangentially related to the Olympic. There's even a picture of the ship that laid the mine which sank the battleship Audacious. One wonders if "Six Degrees of RMS Olympic" would have been a more appropriate title!As you might have guessed, I found this book to be a serious disappointment. Although some of the photographs were new to me, the amount of padding is ridiculous, many of the images aren't exactly "rare," and the whole thing feels cold and rushed. For hardcore Titanic/Olympic buffs only.

Finally I got the book! Frankly, there WAS some rare Olympic Pictures in the book, but, I feel hey - what about all the People who took pictures of her With their own camera? I am sure there are thousands pictures of her in private hands. just sad they don't come up With what they have(their kids). You can tell the author loves the ship, and have dedicated the book to her designer and to a man that DO NEED some credit....I won't name him - go look at the book! The author gives a lot of personal touch in the book and feel, like me, that the long endured Old Reliable DID deserve more credit than both Titanic and Britannic(as much as I am Titanic buff). She had a part in WW I and had hundreds of voyages. she saw the Statue of Liberty many times and had her home at the pier waiting her each time. Out of my understanbding why they scrapped ships. Now, we only have the deteriorating Britannic. I find it sad, so sad the Olympic was underated. Well, the book is(I just got it today!)full of Pictures and the information is very detailed. a 5 star buy!! Because I can't give 6.

I think the book is very good. I read the stories of all the great liners. The two Cunard speedsters, the Aquitania, the Titanic etc. The Olympic overlooked by a lot of people but she was almost exactly as large and grand as Titanic and Britannic but was the only one of the three that actually crossed the north Atlantic as she was intended. What I especially liked about this book were the photographs. Some I had seen. Many I had not. There were also ample photos of the other great ships of the day which made comparison in size and grandeur possible. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the early great liners of the 20th century.

All-in-all this book contains a wealth of illustrations of the "Olympic" - as to how "Rare" they are - I'm in doubt - but I'm an old fart and have been studying the Olympic-class liners for a period of 60 years - you have to get up pretty early in the morning to get something by me. But, the nice thing about his book is that it has all these photos of the ship in one book - hence, you don't have to go thumbing through a dozen books to find images. It's a great effort - the "Olympic" was in service for 24 years - there must have been thousands of photos taken during her career - the problem is finding them after 100 years. The book is well worth the money - so, getting a lot of source material and a bang for your buck - there's nothing wrong with that.

I own two other books in the "Unseen" series - "Unseen Mauretania" and "Unseen Aquitania" and have found them fascinating both in their collection of photographs and in the stories of the lives of those two ships. I was looking forward to similar treatment of Olympic but was disappointed to find that the author has relied heavily on contemporary postcard pictures of the ship, not always of the best quality, and appears to believe that details of the postcards are more important than details of the actual ship. Furthermore, a full chapter is devoted to the tragic but well documented demise of Olympic's younger sister, Titanic. Olympic had a long and successful career and deserves better treatment.

A superbly illustrated book and an interesting read. The book cover photo in particular gives an impression of her awesome size. The sister ship of Titanic had an illustrious career as troop ship and luxurious passenger liner. Scrapped in 1935, a great pity. This book is a good companion to Unseen Lusitania.

This is a most pleasing book on a truly remarkable ocean liner.

Good book and pictures

My son loves the book. He’s so into the Titanic and the sister ships too. I’m glad I bought this.