British Ambassador to Naples William Hamilton, a passionate collector and lover of beauty, receives the main treasure of his life - his nephew's former mistress, beautiful Emma. Raising her from the bottom of society to the upper world, he, like Pygmalion, turns his vulgar Galatea into a real work of art. But there is a Hero, indomitable and mysterious, - the famous Admiral Nelson ... The famous love triangle . Eighteenth-century society without the embellishment, luxury and filth of the aristocracy, the eruption of revolution and the rampage of passion is the most ambiguous episode of European history in Susan Sontag's world-famous novel The Volcano Mistress.