In the canon
Vathek
- Form
- Form Novella
- Year
- Year 1786
- Originally in
- Originally in French
- Pages
- Pages 130
A caliph trades his soul for forbidden knowledge and descends through ruined Persepolis toward the subterranean Hall of Eblis, where the damned wander forever clutching their burning hearts. William Beckford wrote this oriental fantasia in French across a single feverish stretch in 1782, at twenty-two, the richest commoner in England, spending his fortune on a Wiltshire abbey designed to collapse under its own ambition.
The blurb, the gist, the why of the day and the work itself are in the app. The first button needs it on this device; the second gets it there.