William Beckford (1759-1844)

Written effortlessly in just three days in 1871, when the author was twentyone years old, Vathek, the most important Beckford’s work, recalls partly to the tradition of gothic novel and of terror inaugurated some decades before by Walpole in his “Castle of Otranto”. But Beckford’s novel is marked by a typical oriental setting, centred upon the character of an ambitious and unsatisfied caliph, who through the practice of crimes, black magic and sacrifices to the evil powers, conquers with his beloved woman the kingdom of hell, the kingdom of their eternal despair.