This captivating family history, which paints a vivid tableau of Victorian and Edwardian life in the best circles, grew from a cache of letters – adoring, confiding, intimate, written from the heart, sometimes five a day – by Edward Burne-Jones to a married woman…vibrant.
Valerie Grove Literary Review
 

A chance encounter sent Josceline Dimbleby on a search to discover the truth about her great-grandmother, May Gaskell, her tragic daughter Amy, and the famous painter Edward Burne-Jones. She met Andrew Lloyd Weber at a party and talked to him about a dark, mysterious Burne-Jones portrait he possessed. The subject was Amy, who, according to family lore, 'died young of a broken heart'. In her search to find out more, she came across a family cache of unpublished letters from Burne-Jones to May Gaskell which exposes a passionate correspondence, of up to five letters a day, throughout the last six years of the pre-Raphaelite painter's life. As she delved deeper, more and more unanswered questions were revealed: why did Burne-Jones feel he had to protect May from an overwhelming sadness? What was the 'profound secret' she had confided to him? What was the tragic truth behind May's beautiful daughter Amy's wayward, wandering life, her strange marriage, and her unexplained death?

In piecing together the romantic, poignant story of her own great-grandmother, Josceline Dimbleby brings to life a most turbulent period in English history, visiting the most far-flung corners of the Empire, covering the Boer War and the Great War, peopled by bohemian artists and tortured gentry, lonely colonial civil servants, and dashing socialites; the Souls, William Morris, Rudyard Kipling and William Gladstone.

‘As with the opposite sex, there are few books you fall for and want for life, even fewerwith which you can find little fault. Here is a right stunner, a secret family history…At the book’s outset she 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

‘Enchanting.’
Independent

‘An entirely captivating book…Josceline Dimbleby’s greatest gift as a story-teller is her ability to communicate the excitement of her discoveries… compelling.’
Miranda Seymour The Sunday Times

‘An engrossing portrait.’
Kate Chisholm Daily Telegraph

‘A brilliant sleuthing job which will appeal to anyone who has ever found a skeleton in the family closet.’
Daily Express

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

Enchanting. It has so many layers . . . a treasure trove of material . . . excellent period detail, and skilfully maintained mystery.
Andrew Lycett, author of DYLAN THOMAS

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, A Profound Secret is also a charming portrait of a circle of family and friends. This is a highly enjoyable book, full of engaging detail and marvellous research.
Caroline Moorehead author of MARTHA GELLHORN

This enthralling family romance explores a lost world of hidden love…more compelling than many novels and more informative than most history books.
Observer

‘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
Katie Hickman

Buy A Profound Secret: May Gaskell, Her Daughter Amy And Edward Burne-Jones and other great titles from rBooks.co.uk.