Vathek
Beckford’s lurid Arabian tale follows the Caliph Vathek, a ruler of monstrous appetites who trades everything sacred for a promise of forbidden power. Lured by a hideous stranger toward the subterranean halls of Eblis, he commits one atrocity after another in pursuit of hidden treasure and secret knowledge, dragging the beautiful Nouronihar down with him. Written in French when Beckford was barely into his twenties and first published in English in 1786, the book fuses Gothic dread with the exotic machinery of the Arabian Nights, and it closes on one of the bleakest visions of damnation in early fiction. Byron admired it, and its influence runs through a century of dark Romantic writing. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.
About the Author
William Beckford (1760-1844) was an English novelist, critic, and famously wealthy eccentric who built the extravagant Gothic pile of Fonthill Abbey. A collector, traveller, and dilettante, he is remembered chiefly for Vathek, the oriental Gothic tale he wrote in his early twenties.
See all books by William Beckford →
