Cover image for

Bella Donna

Subtitle A Novel
Author Robert Smythe Hichens
Categories Fiction, Romance
Language English
Published 1908
Notes

The story of a British Egyptologist who is driven to murder by his wife's affair with an Egyptian man.

Approx. 176,362 words.

Excerpt

gone wrong, and he had not thought it necessary to pay up her losses. She moved from her house in Park Lane to a flat in Victoria Street, then to a little house in Kensington. Then she gave that up, and took a small place in the country, and motored up and down, to and from town. Then she got sick of that, and went to live in a London hotel. She sold her yacht. She sold a quantity of diamonds.

And people continued to say, "Mrs. Chepstow--oh, she must be well over fifty."

Undoubtedly she was face to face with a very bad period. With every month that passed, loneliness stared at her more fixedly, looked at her in the eyes till she began to feel almost dazed, almost hypnotized. A dulness crept over her.

Forty struck--forty-one--forty-two.

And then, one morning of June, Doctor Meyer Isaacson sat sipping his coffee and looking at her name, written against the time, five-thirty, in his book of consultations.

II

Doctor Meyer Isaacson did not know Mrs. Chepstow personall

ReviewsAdd a review for this title.

2008.05.01
Generosa Rader

This novel is about an evil, immoral, greedy, vain woman, the Bella Donna of the title, who is past her prime in looks, and ostracized by London society. In London she meets and marries a young English heir to a Lordship for the sole purpose of gaining riches and societal stature - she does not love him, although he is totally mesmerized and infatuated with her and blind to her character failings. On their honeymoon shipboard voyage to Egypt where he lives and works as an Egyptologist, they meet a wealthy Egyptian businessman with whom she forms an immediate attraction, and whom she pursues later in the story. Her husband fails to inherit the Lordship and related estates - at this point she decides to slowly poison him with lead in his food over several months. Her goal being to get rid of him and become the Egyptian's lover. The author excels in creating most vivid pictures of Egypt's customs, natives, music, landscapes, and Egyptian relics/pyramids based on his personal travels to Egypt in his life time. The descriptions of the characters' thoughts and motivations are superb. I thought the book was rather long but riveting. Does Bella Donna succeed with her nefarious plans? Read the book to find out!