Book description
A chance encounter with Andrew Lloyd Webber at a summer party sent
Josceline Dimbleby on a quest to uncover a mystery in her own family's
past. Her great-aunt Amy Gaskell was the subject of a beautiful dark
portrait by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, but all
that was known about Amy, according to family lore, was that she had
'died young of a broken heart'.
In her search, Josceline discovered a cache of unpublished letters
from Burne-Jones to her great-grandmother May Gaskell, Amy's mother.
They formed a passionate and prolific correspondence, of up to five
letters a day, from the last six years of the painter's life. As she
read, more and more questions were raised: why did Burne-Jones feel he
had to protect May from an overwhelming sadness? What was the deep
secret she had confided to him? And what was the tragic truth behind
beautiful Amy's wayward, wandering life, her strange marriage and her
unexplained early death?
Josceline Dimbleby is the author of many bestselling cookery books
and a winner of the André Simon and Glenfiddich Cookery food-writers'
awards. She wrote a cookery column for the Sunday Telegraph for
fifteen years. She recently turned to travel writing and has written
travel pieces for the Mail on Sunday, Cond
é
Nast Traveller and Sainsburys Magazine.
