Vathek; An Arabian Tale (Paperback)

from kant1066

William Beckford, the author of "Vathek," led a rather remarkable life - so remarkable, in fact, that reviewers and critics are left baffled at how to interpret it other than reading it as a sort of fantastic confabulation of his life. He was born in 1760, son of the two-time Lord Mayor of London...

from questbird

Greedy and lascivious Caliph Vathek abandons his duties and religion to follow a quest for forbidden knowledge. Written in a style similar to Clark Ashton Smith, a sort of faux Arabian Nights tale.

from amydross

Although fascinating as a document of its time and British preoccupations with fantasies of the orient, I don't think this can be considered great literature. The prose is, at its best, serviceable.

from EadieB

Book Description"Woe to the rash mortal who seeks to know that of which he should remain ignorant; and to undertake that which surpasseth his power!"One of the strangest and most unforgettable eighteenth-century novels, Vathek is a wild Gothic fantasy whose sensuous imagination and grotesque come...

from Cecrow

Vathek does a credible job of capturing the Arabian Nights tone and lush descriptive passages, based on my faint recollection. Anything mixing this and the Gothic is liable to turn incredible in places - and it does - testing a reader's patience if it's taken too seriously. But the story is still...