[1] After her abusive husband abandoned the family, Helen Candee supported herself and children as a writer for popular magazines such as Scribner's and The Ladies' Home Journal.

She initially wrote on the subjects most familiar to her—genteel etiquette and household management—but soon branched into other topics such as child care, education, and women's rights.

On the voyage, she socialized with other prominent travelers, such as President Taft's military aide, Major Archibald Butt, Col. Gracie, and the painter Francis Davis Millet.

[8] Candee subsequently gave a short interview about her experiences to the Washington Herald and wrote a detailed article on the disaster for Collier's Weekly.

The article hinted at a romantic involvement with an unidentified male passenger, believed to be an amalgam of two of her escorts en route, New York architect Edward Austin Kent and London investor Hugh Woolner.

[10] Candee's Titanic injury required her to walk with a cane for almost a year, but by March 1913, she was able to join other feminist equestriennes in the "Votes for Women" parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.), riding her horse at the head of the procession that culminated at the steps of Capitol Hill.

After the war, she traveled to Japan, China, Indonesia, and Cambodia, and her adventures became the basis for two of her most celebrated books: Angkor the Magnificent (1924) and New Journeys in Old Asia (1927).

Largely unknown to Westerners until the publication of Candee's book, its subsequent popularity laid groundwork for the modern tourist market in Cambodia.

[12] On Candee's initial southeast Asian trips in 1922-23 she was accompanied by her son, Harry, with whom she trekked through the then dangerous jungles with their native guide, riding atop the great elephant she named "Effie".

The success of Angkor and New Journeys led to a prosperous secondary career for Candee as a lecturer on the Far East, while her work as a journalist continued apace.

This story, based on a possibly romanticized manuscript of Candee's, is believed to have inspired the famous "sunset" love scene between characters Jack and Rose in the earlier motion picture Titanic (1997).

In 2009, the newly appointed Ambassador to Cambodia, Carol Rodley, presented a copy of the reissued Angkor as a protocol gift to King Norodom Sihamoni on her arrival at the palace in Phnom Penh, Khmer.