Indigo & Opium: Two Remarkable Families and Fortunes Won and Lost

British India in the middle of the 19th century and two enterprising families from modest origins who made immense fortunes, one from growing and processing indigo and the other from trading opium into China. Their stories are punctuated by shipwrecks, heroic acts in battles (including three Victoria Crosses), romantic trysts and sudden death; a disputed Dukedom, unexpected inheritances and political conflicts; the Opium Wars, the founding of Hong Kong and a ruinous financial crash. The two families, Hills and Dent, never met during the period of their wealth and influence, but on a summer’s day in 1918 a young officer in the Royal Navy married a 19 year old Edinburgh art-student. This forged the link that led to a return to China, accompanied by a car that was smuggled out in a submarine…