Within hours of Titanic sinking, memorial books were put into print touting to have the "thrilling" and "real story" of the sinking. Sold at $1.00 ($1.50 for leather-bound copies) each by door-to-door salesmen, most were shoddily put together and produced under questionable ethics, plagiarizing from news articles, reprinting photographs without attribution, making up facts - and in some cases making up the author himself.

Several versions of these rushed memorial books exist today, varying in text, author, and cover, with rarer combinations commanding higher prices, while the more common editions can still be had for relatively modest prices.