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Vathek: A Middle Eastern Gothic Novel of Forbidden Knowledge
102 pages, Paperback
Published December 27, 2024
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About the author
William Beckford
297 books90 followersWilliam Thomas Beckford was an English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed at one stage in his life to be the richest commoner in England. His parents were William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, daughter of the Hon. George Hamilton. He was Member of Parliament for Wells from 1784 to 1790, for Hindon from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820.
He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
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December 29, 2025
Originally published in 1786 and translated from the French by Samuel Henley, Vathek is set in a fantastical Middle East imagined through the lens of Gothic romance. William Beckford’s novel traces the rise and fall of the Caliph Vathek, a ruler blessed with near-limitless power, a bit of a tower fetish, and the emotional regulation of a man-child who has just learned metaphysics.
From the beginning, Vathek is defined by excess: his towering palace brims with luxury, his court with indulgence, his mind with an unquenchable hunger for knowledge that strays beyond the permitted bounds of faith and reason.
The story is set in motion by the arrival of a mysterious stranger, a figure steeped in arcane lore and sinister promise. Through him, Vathek glimpses forbidden sciences and the possibility of dominion beyond the mortal sphere. Inflamed by curiosity and urged on by his mother, Carathis (possibly the most alarming helicopter parent in literature) the Caliph abandons restraint. Religious devotion gives way to occult experimentation; justice yields to cruelty; reverence is replaced by desire. Each choice tightens the chain that binds him to his fate.
As Vathek journeys across enchanted landscapes through deserts, ruins, and halls heavy with ancient secrets, his moral descent mirrors his physical travels. He gathers companions and victims alike, whose own wavering loyalties and fears reflect the novel’s preoccupation with temptation.
There is a notable balance between lyricism and irony. Beckford adorns palaces, rituals, and landscapes with sensuous detail (perfumes, colors, architectural vastness) yet his tone often carries a faint, knowing sharpness. This irony prevents the prose from collapsing into pure romantic indulgence; even at its most sumptuous, it hints at decay beneath the splendor. Grandeur is always on the brink of grotesque, wonder edging toward menace. As Vathek’s ambition intensifies, the prose subtly darkens, trading brightness for density, spaciousness for enclosure.
Vathek’s towering palaces, lofty halls, and elevated thrones symbolize both imperial power and spiritual arrogance. His desire is always upward and outward, reaching beyond human limits. Yet this aspiration inevitably reverses itself: the narrative draws him downward into caverns, subterranean halls, and enclosed realms. Descent becomes the visual language of moral collapse, culminating in an underworld that literalizes the consequences of unchecked ambition.
The downside to the novel being so brief is that its characters, including Vathek himself, are more symbolic than fully human, and limits any capacity for empathy. The novel prioritizes moral design and spectacle over interior depth, so the figures felt remote and schematic.
I adore this editions cover choice of John Martin’s The Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium, where the vast, shadowy depths of Pandemonium feel like a visual echo of the oppressive Hall of Eblis; they both trade in the grand, sweeping scale of psychological ruin rather than anything so gauche as simple physical pain.
Today’s pursuit of knowledge often carries the same promise that seduced Vathek: mastery, efficiency, transcendence of human constraint. Whether in the realms of technology, science, or influence, the belief that everything can be known or controlled easily slides into the assumption that everything should be. Beckford’s caution is not anti-progress but anti-hubris.
On a psychological level, Vathek anticipates modern understandings of self-entrapment. Vathek is not destroyed by external enemies but by the internal logic of his own choices. His fate illustrates how identity can become locked around obsession, how the refusal to pause or reconsider gradually erases alternatives. In this sense, the novel feels uncannily modern, aligning with contemporary discussions of burnout, addiction, and the costs of unexamined striving.
His pride arrived at its height when, having ascended, for the first time, the eleven thousand stairs of his tower, he cast his eyes below and beheld men not larger than pismires; mountains than shells; and cities than bee-hives. -page 3
From the beginning, Vathek is defined by excess: his towering palace brims with luxury, his court with indulgence, his mind with an unquenchable hunger for knowledge that strays beyond the permitted bounds of faith and reason.
The story is set in motion by the arrival of a mysterious stranger, a figure steeped in arcane lore and sinister promise. Through him, Vathek glimpses forbidden sciences and the possibility of dominion beyond the mortal sphere. Inflamed by curiosity and urged on by his mother, Carathis (possibly the most alarming helicopter parent in literature) the Caliph abandons restraint. Religious devotion gives way to occult experimentation; justice yields to cruelty; reverence is replaced by desire. Each choice tightens the chain that binds him to his fate.
As Vathek journeys across enchanted landscapes through deserts, ruins, and halls heavy with ancient secrets, his moral descent mirrors his physical travels. He gathers companions and victims alike, whose own wavering loyalties and fears reflect the novel’s preoccupation with temptation.
This singular lake, those flames reflected from its glassy surface, the pale hues of its banks, the romantic cabins, the bull-rushes that sadly waved their drooping heads, the storks whose melancholy cries blended with the shrill voices of the dwarfs, everything conspired to persuade them that the angel of death had opened the portal of some other world. -page 60
There is a notable balance between lyricism and irony. Beckford adorns palaces, rituals, and landscapes with sensuous detail (perfumes, colors, architectural vastness) yet his tone often carries a faint, knowing sharpness. This irony prevents the prose from collapsing into pure romantic indulgence; even at its most sumptuous, it hints at decay beneath the splendor. Grandeur is always on the brink of grotesque, wonder edging toward menace. As Vathek’s ambition intensifies, the prose subtly darkens, trading brightness for density, spaciousness for enclosure.
Vathek’s towering palaces, lofty halls, and elevated thrones symbolize both imperial power and spiritual arrogance. His desire is always upward and outward, reaching beyond human limits. Yet this aspiration inevitably reverses itself: the narrative draws him downward into caverns, subterranean halls, and enclosed realms. Descent becomes the visual language of moral collapse, culminating in an underworld that literalizes the consequences of unchecked ambition.
A deathlike stillness reigned over the mountain, and through the air. The moon dilated, on a vast platform, the shades of the lofty columns, which reached from the terrace, almost to the clouds. The gloomy watch-towers, whose number could not be counted, were veiled by no roof: and their capitals, of an architecture unknown in the records of the earth, served as an asylum for the birds of darkness, which, alarmed at the approach of such visitants, fled away croaking. -page 80
The downside to the novel being so brief is that its characters, including Vathek himself, are more symbolic than fully human, and limits any capacity for empathy. The novel prioritizes moral design and spectacle over interior depth, so the figures felt remote and schematic.
I adore this editions cover choice of John Martin’s The Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium, where the vast, shadowy depths of Pandemonium feel like a visual echo of the oppressive Hall of Eblis; they both trade in the grand, sweeping scale of psychological ruin rather than anything so gauche as simple physical pain.
Today’s pursuit of knowledge often carries the same promise that seduced Vathek: mastery, efficiency, transcendence of human constraint. Whether in the realms of technology, science, or influence, the belief that everything can be known or controlled easily slides into the assumption that everything should be. Beckford’s caution is not anti-progress but anti-hubris.
On a psychological level, Vathek anticipates modern understandings of self-entrapment. Vathek is not destroyed by external enemies but by the internal logic of his own choices. His fate illustrates how identity can become locked around obsession, how the refusal to pause or reconsider gradually erases alternatives. In this sense, the novel feels uncannily modern, aligning with contemporary discussions of burnout, addiction, and the costs of unexamined striving.
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