Always intrigued by Edward Burne-Jones’s portrait of her great-aunt, Amy Gaskell, Josceline Dimbleby’s chance meeting with the painting’s current owner encouraged her to explore the mystery of her own family’s past and the life and death of her beautiful great-aunt. In her search, Dimbleby uncovered a passionate correspondence between Burne-Jones and her great-grandmother, May Gaskell, Amy’s mother, which continued throughout the last six years of the Pre-Raphaelite painter’s life. As she delved deeper into their engrossing lives, questions emerged. What was the deep secret May had confided to Edward? And what was the tragic truth behind Amy’s wayward, wandering life, her strange marriage, and her unexplained early death? Weaving together the threads of this tale, Dimbleby takes us through a turbulent period in English history and visits the most far-flung corners of the Empire. William Morris, Rudyard Kipling, William Gladstone, and prominent members of the Souls also play a part in this sweeping, often funny, and sometimes tragic story. Richly detailed and exquisitely told, May and Amy is a stunning account of hidden love and family secrets. “In intimate detail, [Dimbleby] pieces together her forebears’ secrets and tragedies.” — New York Daily News “Every family has a unique story, and Josceline Dimbleby tells hers with precision and empathy.” — Miami Herald “Dimbleby wonderfully conveys the drama of doing research, the sense of awe inspired by touching artifacts from long ago, the excitement of being taken by surprise at the contents of a letter, the ambivalence she sometimes felt toward her subjects. . . . Readers immersed in this story may well feel the same way.” — Boston Globe “As with the opposite sex, there are few books you fall for and want for life, even fewer with which you can find little fault. Here is a right stunner, a secret family history. . . . At the book’s outset [Dimbleby] is an innocent setting off breathlessly on a search; but the innocent evolves into a romantic, then acquires the wisdom of a historian, and ends up encasing a whole century in the most attractive of nutshells.” —David Hughes, Spectator (UK) “A brilliant sleuthing job which will appeal to anyone who has ever found a skeleton in the family closet.” — Daily Express (UK) “An entirely captivating book . . . Josceline Dimbleby’s greatest gift as a storyteller is her ability to communicate the excitement of her discoveries . . . compelling.” —Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times (UK) “Utterly charming . . . as tightly structured as a crime novel.” — Sunday Telegraph (UK) “This enthralling family romance explores a lost world of hidden love . . . more compelling than many novels and more informative than most history books.” — Observer (UK) “A wonderful cabinet of curiosities of a book. Josceline Dimbleby’s family memoir of art, death, and forbidden love—locked away for more than a hundred years in secret letters and attic trunks—reads like the most gripping novel. I loved it.” —Katie Hickman, author of Courtesans and Daughters of Britannia “What I admire particularly is the social research on which she has constructed a compelling romance (complete with mystery). The way in which she makes her quest part of the story gives the book an extra excitement. The whole book is deeply satisfying.” —Michael Holroyd, author of Basil Street Blues and Mosaic “The story of an intimate friendship between the painter Edward Burne-Jones and the much younger May Gaskell, richly illustrated by a remarkable collection of new letters, May and Amy is also a charming portrait of a circle of family and friends. This is a highly enjoyable book, full of engaging detail and marvelous research.” —Caroline Moorehead, author of Martha Gellhorn Award-winning writer Josceline Dimbleby has authored several bestselling cookbooks and was a food columnist for London’s Sunday Telegraph for fifteen years. She lives in London. Chapter one:Romance in Oxford In 1840, two young irish sisters left their strict protestant home in County Down for the first time. Their father, Captain Samuel Hill, was agent to Lord Roden’s estates. Lord Roden was a staunch Orangeman, who had been made Grand Master of the Orange Order in 1837. Helen and Emma Hill crossed the Irish Sea and arrived in Oxford by coach to stay for six months with their uncle, who was a don at the university. They were unsophisticated but very pretty girls, sweet natured and musical. With well-trained, beautiful voices, they used to sing traditional Irish duets together. Both girls were petite, with delicate features; but Emma, the younger sister, had a striking combination of rich brown hair and eyes of the palest blue, made even more remarkable by a dark blue rim round the pupils. Her complexion was creamy smooth, her neck graceful, and her pretty figure and tiny feet were envied by other women, and admired by men. It was not long before the Hill sisters were noticed i