Without doubt this must be the most extensive, and lavish, publication devoted to the Queen of Bermuda and the ‘Furness New York – Bermuda’ service. The unfolding story is well balanced, with nine of its seventeen chapters devoted to the ‘Queen’ and the remaining eight covering the Furness Line and other ships of the fleet, including one complete chapter on the QoB’s near identical (and slightly older) sister, the Monarch of Bermuda. In fact, the deck plans represented within are those of the Monarch, however (as stated in the text) the interior arrangements of the two vessels were virtually identical. Two appendixes round out the 288 pages: Furness Line Chronology and Furness Bermuda Line Passenger Ships Fleet List, all the statistics one would ever need at one’s fingertips.

Visually this book offers plenty to satisfy. The dust jacket features a ‘wrap-around-the-spine’ study by renowned maritime artist Stephen J. Card, and the inside end flaps, both front and back, feature a color cut-away and a photograph of a model of the QoB. Within, four sets of deck plans are reproduced: Fort George, Bermuda, Monarch of Bermuda and the Queen of Bermuda as rebuilt in 1961. Unfortunately, these plans are not ‘shipbuilder style’ showing all decks and an inboard profile but rather detailed (showing furniture) ‘cruise brochure’ color-coded (those for the Bermuda are b/w) plans illustrating ‘passenger accommodation’ and ‘public rooms’ only. Thus, ‘top-of-house’ information is not featured, and this will be a disappointment to the ‘would be’ scratch-build modelers. In compensation the book is beautifully illustrated, containing many photographs in both color and b/w, and just about the right amount of reproduced luggage tags and menu covers (read: not many at all!). If anything, there are way too many (for my liking) reproduced sailing schedules. Rounding out the visuals is a three-page (panel) very detailed color foldout profile drawing, which I calculate to be approximately 1:300 scale (1:269 +/- actually).

This is, without question, a very interesting liner. A ‘mini-Queen Mary’ of sorts, one often overlooked in maritime chronicles primarily because (I assume) she did not serve on the more glamorous North Atlantic run. I was surprised to read she was only 579 feet in length, smaller than Cunard’s Caronia today. However, with her three raked funnels she appears to be a much larger ship, comparable to Canadian Pacific’s Empress of Britain. Even the spaciousness of her interior rooms suggests ‘big ship’ ~ of particular interest in the unusual placement of her swimming pool, enclosed, on the Promenade (A-Deck) aft, rather than be tucked away on a lower deck and what must have been the largest ‘open concept’ dance-hall provided on a liner (75’ x 75’ square) at the time. One must keep in mind that the QoB entered service well in advance of the Queen Mary or Normandie, and was designed for a much shorter (in both distance and duration) ‘sea’ experience. Given this, spaciousness and luxury could have easily been downplayed however the opposite was true. She offered a ‘big liner’ experience 2nd only to those vessels serving the ‘NYC – Southampton’ run.