Horatio Nelson encountered the British Consul to the Kingdom of Naples in 1800, after he returned there as a conquering hero from his victory at the Nile. This book's POV bounces between William Hamilton, the diplomat, and his trophy wife, Emma Hamilton, a woman of shady antecedents. The pair under stand Emma's motives in taking up with, and bearing a child to Nelson, a married man. It is a love story, and unconventional for the 1960's let alone the 1800's. the prose is good, but this is a slight work compared to Stacton's best work, like "A Dancer in Darkness, or "People of the Book". Slight or not, I read it twice, the first time in March, 1966. ( )