In 1946 when Winston Churchill referred to the 'special relationship' between the USA and Britain in his 'Sinews of Peace' address, he was referring to the strikingly close political, economic, diplomatic and military alliance between the two nations. Alongside and throughout the cultural history of this very pragmatic alliance, however, there have always existed US-UK 'special relationships' of another kind - love affairs carried out across the expanse of the Atlantic, as British and American citizens have flirted, courted and fallen in love, with one another but often too with the idea(l) of that other place across the ocean. US-UK love affairs have thus proven to be a mainstay of romantic narratives for generations, shared across the film, television, literature and all the arts. At a critical historical juncture in the ongoing viability of the special relationship, this interdisciplinary collection examines some of the history, manifestations and enduring appeal of these relationships for a global and interdisciplinary audience, asking: what are the economic and ideological factors that have fueled this romantic framework?; what have been its recurrent tropes across disciplinary, national and temporal boundaries?; and how does the notion of 'love across the Atlantic' speak to our collective fantasies of home, desire, escape and identity?