Titanic passenger’s letter gives ‘absolutely fascinating’ account of life on board before disaster

By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — A letter containing “absolutely fascinating” details of life on the ill-fated Titanic cruise liner is expected to fetch around £35,000 ($47,000) at auction.

Written by a passenger named Henry Hodges, the letter is dated April 10, 1912 – the day RMS Titanic set sail – according to a listing at British auction house Henry Aldridge and Son.

In the letter, Hodges tells a friend, Hector, about what “a fine time” he has had on board.

“Up to now, you do not see anything of the movement of the ship, but the weather is very fine,” he writes.

“On the top deck there are about 200 boys (from 20 upwards) marching round & singing, others are playing dominoes & cards in the saloons, some reading, some writing, everything is quite different to what you would expect to see at sea,” adds Hodges, who died when the ship sank.

When the Titanic departed Belfast, Northern Ireland on her maiden voyage, she was the largest passenger ship in service and considered to be “unsinkable.”

Just four days later, on April 14, that voyage was transformed into an international tragedy when the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40 p.m. local time. She sank in less than three hours.

The ship did not have enough lifeboats for the approximately 2,220 people on board. More than 1,500 people lost their lives in the accident, and the Titanic became the most famous shipwreck in history.

The missive is “an exceptional letter on mutiple levels,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge told CNN on Tuesday.

Firstly, Hodges, a musical instrument salesman, was traveling for pleasure and was on his way to Boston to see some friends, traveling in second class.

“There is a lack of material relating to second class passengers,” said Aldridge.

“Everyone knows about third class, the emigration element, starting a new life. Everyone knows about the richest people in the ship of first class,” he said. “But you know that the story of second class is one that really hasn’t been told that much.”

And secondly, Hodges’ letter reveals details about “the nuts and bolts of life on board,” said Aldridge, who added that “it’s absolutely fascinating.”

The letter has never been offered for sale before, and is “completely fresh to the market,” added Aldridge.

It is being sold as part of an online auction, with bidding set to end at 4 p.m UK time (11 a.m ET) on Sunday.

At the time of writing, the highest bid was £26,000 ($35,000), at the lower end of an estimate of up to £35,000.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.