Subtitled A Romance, Susan Sontag's best-selling THE VOLCANO LOVER is about Lord Nelson and his scandalous love affair with Lady Emma Hamilton. The story is set in Naples in the 1790s; Vesuvius is threatening, the French Revolution is rumbling offstage, and Emma, a lowborn but strikingly beautiful young woman married to the much older Sir William Hamilton (ambassador to the court of Naples), is carrying on with Nelson under her husband's very palatial roof. Sontag captures their passion, along with the treacheries, hypocrisy, and general instability of the times, in a novel that brilliantly combines history, ideas, and the highly realistic depiction of a notorious love triangle. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.