Imagine discovering a cache of passionate letters between your great-grandmother and a famous Pre-Raphaelite painter. Josceline Dimbleby did just that. A drawing of her great-grandmother dated 1898 had always hung in her childhood home, which had been drawn by artist Edward Burne-Jones. It wasn't until Dimbleby was a teenager that she thought to ask who the woman in the portrait was. Her great-grandmother, May, and May's daughter Amy were wrapped up in what seemed like a mystery to Dimbleby. Later when she discovers a beautiful portrait painted by Burne-Jones of her great-aunt, Amy, she begins a search into her family's hidden past.
I love books like this, and as enough time now has passed since I finished my last nonfiction read, I thought it was time to choose another. I've had Dimbleby's May and Amy: A True Story of Family, Forbidden Love, and the Secret Lives of May Gaskell and her Daughter Amy, and Sir Edward Burne-Jones (whew, I think in the future I'll just refer to it as May and Amy) for quite a long time now. Although not as informally written as Slipstream was, this is still an absorbing read so far. Why is it always so fascinating reading about other people's lives? When they involve letters that verge on love letters (though perhaps not in the way we think of them) between a married relative and a famous artist it just adds to the natural curiosity. Edward Burne-Jones and May exchanged letters, sometimes up to five a day (imagine!) during the last six year's of the painter's life, though their relationship was a platonic one. What's especially interesting is how Amy comes into the equation. Dimbleby wanted to find the truth behind "Amy's wayward, wandering life, her strange marriage and her unexplained early death."
As this is a more traditional biography, Dimbleby goes back to 1840 and begins at the beginning--with May's parents. I'm looking forward to the secrets unraveling about these two women. Along the way I am supposed to be treated to a "turbulent period in history that includes the Boer War, the Great War, the Second World War and the most far-flung corners of the British Empire." It sounds right up my alley. I'll let you know how it goes.