10 The Lusitania’s roster: “Summary of Passengers’ Nationality,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside. Passengers’ addresses, including hotels and other temporary addresses in New York, may be found in Public Record Office Papers, PRO 22/71, National Archives UK.
11 The American complement: Here I use Cunard’s official tally. But other sources offer varying totals, one as high as 218. “Summary of Passengers’ Nationality,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside; “List of American Passengers Believed to Have Sailed on the Lusitania,” U.S. National Archives–College Park.
12 They brought their best clothes: The items that follow, alas, were what Cunard cataloged from some of the dead whose bodies were recovered but not identified. “Unidentified Remains,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.
13 Ian Holbourn, the famed writer: Holbourn was known widely as “the Laird of Foula,” for his ownership of an island in the Shetlands. The island, Foula, was a haven for all manner of birdlife, bearing storybook names coined by Foula’s past inhabitants: the cra’, of course—the crow, but also the rochie, the maa and maallie, and the tammie norie, wulkie, bonxie, ebb-pickie, snipoch, and the Allen Richardson, or Scootie Allen, or just plain Allen, this last the Arctic skua. For these and other charming details, certain to set alight the imaginations of birders everywhere, please see Holbourn’s own The Isle of Foula, throughout.
14 “the golden age”: Bolze, “From Private Passion,” 415.
15 “born boat sailor”: Boston Daily Globe, May 11, 1915.