May and Amy: A True Story of Family, Forbidden Love, and the Secret Lives of May Gaskell, Her Daughter Amy, and Sir Edward Burne-Jo

by Josceline Dimbleby

Book Overview

A chance encounter at a summer party sent writer Josceline Dimbleby on a quest to uncover a mystery in her family's past. After talking with Andrew Lloyd Webber about a beautiful, dark portrait in his art collection, she decided to find out more about the subject of the painting: her great-aunt Amy Gaskell. Dimbleby had always known her great-aunt's face from this haunted portrait by the well-known Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones, but...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609609998
• ISBN13: 9780609609996
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

May and Amie

Grabbed me from the beginning. I love a good biography.I appreciate all the work involved and the connection to author and subject made it appealing also. Well done.

Fascinating, Irresistable and Delicious!

This book came into my life while I was on holiday in Maui. I found it left in a condo I was renting. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. It is the kind of book one will read until 3:00am because one wants to read just one more chapter before putting it aside for the night. I found this book mesmerizing. The dual excitement of accompanying the author on her detective mission into the history of her relatives along with the discovery of the life journey of her ancestors is one of the best adventures I have had in a long time. Ms. Dimbleby is already an accomplished writer, and her writing style is beautifully elegant and swiftly moving. Her ability to bring the personalities of some intensely fascinating Victorian era characters to warm-blooded life is awe inspiring. Serendipitously, her ancestors were similarly talented with a pen, prolific letter writers, and thereby preserved first person accounts of many of the most interesting events and issues of their time. One gets to know these people in an intimate way and feels an inkling of understanding about what motivated them, inspired them, made their lives worth living or took the desire to live away from them entirely. One also gets a bonus understanding of the Boer Wars and other military actions of the British Government during Victorian times. I loved this book and am delighted to have happened upon it as I did. A wonderful and rewarding read. Enjoy!

An interesting story of a mother and daughter during the mid-Victorian times

This is a rather difficult book to review because of the sub-title (ie: " ....A True Story of Family,Forbidden Love,and the Secret Lives of Mary Gaskell,her daughter Amy, and Sir Edward Burne-Jones"). Originally, I had purchased this book when I did a SEARCH for the Pre-Raphaelite Artist "Sir Edward Burne-Jones". Therefore, this book was one of the first results to come-up in my Search under "Burne-Jones". I was therefore, entrigued by the sub-titles and I soon bought this book. To start off with, if a reader is even somewhat familiar with the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood, and particularly with Edward Burne-Jones, they would know that Edward Burne-Jones had the habit of writing many letters to pretty women that he had met along the way. Some of these "writing relationships" were just that---"writing relationships" (ie: not necessarily physical relationships,or not necessarily un-like that more famous Burne-Jones relationship with Mary Zambaco). (PLEASE NOTE: Burne Jones got involved in these interesting female "relationships" while still married to his only wife: GEORGIE BURNE-JONES). Anyhow, Burne-Jones was taken by pretty women that were "thin" (a MUST under his book) and/or also, by women that were quite fragile-looking. I don`t know why, but for some bizarre reason, Burne-Jones was repulsed by "fat" women (??). So, according to the books I have read about Burne-Jones,once Burne-Jones was teken-in by that woman's thinness and fragile looks, he would soon expand his relationship to a more "intellectual relationship" (as he perceived it) . Sometimes, these relationships became more physical, and sometimes NOT. (By the way, his wife GEORGIE was well aware of all of this). Anyhow, one of the pretty women Burne-Jones encountered, (while still married to Georgie) was a woman named MAY GASKELL. May Gaskell was a very interesting woman with an interseting background, adn this book will discuss these facts. Therefore, the first half of this book by Dimbleby deals with May's background. This part of the book puts, in perspective, May's life --- and especially in context to a typical upper-middle-class VICTORIAN life. Thus, please keep this in mind while reading the first part of this book. Once the reader becomes accustomed to May Gaskell's life, the reader will soon learn about May's relationship to her relatives and especially May's children. Specifically, one of May's favorite children was a beautiful daughter called AMY. Amy, quickly becomes the focus of this Dimbleby book and along with wonderful photos of Amy and her many "boyfriends", Amy's personality begins to emerge throughout this book. In a nutshell, Amy is a very complex person, just like her mother May. Without giving too much away, Amy's life unfolds in the book and there are many pretty Victorian photos of Amy showing the reader why Amy must have been so admired by men and male Artists. Next in this book, the reader becomes involved with the interesting "corresp