The British ambassador to Naples, William Hamilton, a passionate collector and admirer of beauty, receives the main treasure of his life - his nephew's former mistress, the beautiful Emma. Having raised her from the bottom of society to high society, he, like Pygmalion, turns his vulgar Galatea into a real work of art. But a Hero appears, unbending and mysterious - the famous Admiral Nelson... The famous love triangle, the unvarnished society of the 18th century, the luxury and dirt of the aristocracy, the eruption of revolution and the riot of passion - the most controversial episode of European history in Susan Sontag's novel The Admirer of Vesuvius.