First Folio Society Edition, 1994. This book is in excellent condition, with no damage to the book covers or slipcase, as well as no shelfwear to the ends. The maps on the endpapers are specially drawn by Denys Baker. 
 
Nelson's affair with Emma Hamilton was the biggest scandal of the age. Their actual liaison lasted only six years, but it transformed their lives, their respective positions in society, and the public's perception of them both. Horatio Nelson first met Lady Hamilton on 12 September 1793 when he was a 35-year-old post captain and she was the 28-year-old wife of Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy to Naples. Emma was a great beauty and a celebrated artists model, and she was also famous across Europe for performing attitudes, which were performances in which she moved quickly from one dramatic pose to another.
 
This book covers the period 1758 the year of Nelson's birth to 1815, ten years after the death of Nelson in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar. Emma quickly exhausted the small pension Sir William had left her and fell deeply into debt. Nelson had willed his estate to his brother; he gave Merton Place to Emma, but she depleted her finances by trying to keep it up as a monument to him. In spite of Nelson's status as a national hero, the instructions he left to the government to provide for Emma and Horatia were ignored. They showered honours on Nelson's brother instead.
 
Emma spent a year in a virtual debtor's prison, in the company of Horatia, before moving to France to try to escape her creditors. Turning to drink, living in poverty in Calais, she tragically died in January 1815 of amoebic dysentery.