Zeluco

Zeluco,
a novel by Dr J. Moore , published 1786 .

In the author's words, this novel ‘traces the windings of vice’ through the life of a wholly wicked man. Zeluco, a Sicilian noble, exhibits from childhood a character of cruelty, treachery, lust, and violence. He tyrannizes, maims, and murders, even killing his own child and driving its mother mad. In the end he is himself killed. The savagery is curiously interspersed with humorous episodes, several of which involve two comic Scotsmen, Buchanan and Targe.