Fields of fire

A prize winning author paints a fascinating portrait of one of the 18th-century's most colorful characters: Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton represented the epitome of honorable public service. But he is remembered not as a scholar, diplomat, and connoisseur of culture, but for his part in the most scandalous menage a trois of the century: as the cuckolded husband of Emma Hamilton, mistress of the heroic Lord Nelson. For the first time, Hamilton's unpublished notebooks are used to shed new light on the events.