Vathek

by William Beckford

Overview

Reproduction of the original: Vathek by William Beckford

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783752390629
Publisher:	Outlook Verlag
Publication date:	08/03/2020
Pages:	84
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

William Beckford (1760-1844) was an English novelist, art collector, slaveowner, and politician. Born in London, he inherited a massive fortune from his father, a former Lord Mayor of London, as well as an estate in Wiltshire and sugar plantations in Jamaica with around 3,000 African slaves. He lived in ease and luxury, studying music with Mozart and drawing with Alexander Cozens while leading a semi-open bisexual lifestyle. Inspired by a Grand Tour of Europe, Beckford published a travel narrative, Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents (1783). Several years later, he wrote Vathek (1786), a popular Gothic novel originally drafted in French. He earned a reputation as an obsessive art collector and eccentric builder, burning through his fortune at an alarming rate. Throughout his life, he owned and sold original works by Turner, Blake, Velázquez, Lippi, and the Bellini family.

What People are Saying About This

H. P. Lovecraft

Vathek marches onward with a phantasmagoric pomp in which the laughter is that of skeletons feasting under arabesque domes. The descriptions are triumphs of weird coloring which raise the book to a permanent place in English letters.

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2020

First published in 1782, this ornate, orientalist work of supernatural horror from Beckford (1759–1840) is a fever dream for the senses. The evil Caliph Vathek is a glutton for all things worldly. He already has five palaces devoted to the senses (each given flowery names, including “The Palace of Perfumes or The Incentive to Pleasure” and “The Eternal or Unsatiating Banquet”), but when a giaour arrives with treasures unimaginable, Vathek wants more. Prodded by his mother, Carathis, a woman more lustful and despicable than her son, Vathek undertakes a journey to the fabled Palace of Subterranean Fire, hoping to gain supernatural powers. Along the way there are human sacrifices, spells, debauchery, and villainy. The emphasis on how evil every element of Vathek’s life is (even his camel is nefarious) gives rise to some darkly comic moments. The protracted descriptions of riches and feasts are slow going, but in the stirring finale Beckford’s gothic prose shines, and it’s easy to see how this overlooked classic influenced the writing of Byron, Lovecraft, and Poe. This fantastical, over-the-top story will appeal to devotees of early horror. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"This ornate, orientalist work of supernatural horror from Beckford (1759—1840) is a fever dream for the senses." - Publishers Weekly

"a berserk Orientalist fantasy that's the best-known work of Beckford" - Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2020-06-03
Poisoned Pen kicks off its Haunted Library of Horror Classics with a berserk Orientalist fantasy that’s the best-known work of Beckford (1760-1844).

Vathek, Caliph of the Abassides, is a prince seriously addicted to gambling, feasting, and fits of rage. A visit from a stranger from India who renders him ill and then heals him opens his eyes to the possibilities of further decadence beyond the five palaces he’s already dedicated to the delights of the senses. But the stranger is actually a Giaour—that is, an unbeliever—in the service of Eblis, the monarch of hell, whose goal is to tempt Vathek to damnation by getting him to break more and more taboos. It’s a project in which his unwitting target participates enthusiastically. He renounces the teachings of Islam, sacrifices 50 innocent children to death, and agrees to worship the Giaour on the strength of the Giaour’s promise to bring him to “the palace of subterraneous fire” where Soliman Ben Daoud has stored the talismans that will allow him to rule the world. His attempts to steal the seductive Nouronihar from Gulchenrouz, the cousin to whom she’s been promised, are so persistent that Nouronihar’s father, the emir Fakreddin, is driven to drug both lovers so they’ll appear to have died—a plan that falls through despite Fakreddin’s best efforts. One of Mahomet’s Genii asks permission to approach Vathek in the hope of changing his mind before it’s too late, but it’s too late, and he’s condemned to the eternal fires.

A series of overblown set pieces waiting for Cecil B. DeMille or Industrial Light and Magic to bring them to life.

Kirkus Reviews