| # William Thomas Beckford ## Vathek Download PDF file – release 1.0a – 117 pages Download plain text file – release 1.0a Download ePub file – release 1.0a Vathek is a nightmarish and hilarious 18th century mock-“Arabian Nights” satirical tour de force fantasy tale, that, despite its brevity, stands out as one of the most intriguing and most influential examples of early Gothic fiction. ## About the Author William Thomas Beckford, one of England’s most notorious excentrics of his time, was born in London in 1760, into an immensely rich family. His father William Beckford, twice Lord Mayor of London, had made his vast fortune mostly from slave-labor plantations in Jamaica; William Thomas inherited it at the age of ten. Beckford kept spending money lavishly on buidling projects and art, but his income decreased and he was forced to sell not only large parts of his art collection, but also Fonthill Abbey, which, by the way, collapsed shortly afterwards. He then commissioned another extravagant building, Lansdown Tower (now Beckford’s Tower) in Bath, where he died in 1844, and next to which, as had been his wish, he lies buried — it is now open to the public as a museum. Of his literary works, Vathek has remained by far the best known and most influential one. Beckford wrote Vathek 1782 in French, and had it translated into English by Samuel Henley; both the English translation, and a few months later the French original, were published in 1786. Back to the Reading Room