Vendetta!

Corelli's second novel, it tells the story of an Italian count who, after being mistakenly declared dead, returns home to find his wife romantically involved with his best friend and seeks revenge on them both.

Amidst a cholera outbreak in Naples, Romani is mistakenly pronounced dead and placed in a coffin in an above-ground family tomb.

When he returns home, he finds that his wife, Nina, and his best friend, Guido Ferrari, are continuing a long-standing affair, and that neither mourns his death.

Bentley was happy with the story, though he advised that it be condensed in places, and he gave it the title Vendetta, rather than Corelli's original choice, Buried Alive.

[1] Corelli signed a contract with Bentley on 19 July, receiving 50 pounds immediately, plus an additional 50 conditional on sales reaching 550 copies.

[2] The critic George Sala wrote of the book in the Illustrated London News: I am reading Vendetta with a wet cloth round my head, and my feet in a basin of iced and camphorated water; but ere I reach the end of the Signora or Signorina Corelli's appalling romance , dreadful consequences will, I fear, accrue.