VATHEK WITH THE EPISODES OF VATHEK ... Edited with a Historical Introduction and Notes by Guy Chapman. [London]: Printed at the University Press, Cambridge, for Constable and Company Limited & Houghton Mifflin Company, 1929. Octavo, two volumes, Eight inserted plates, publisher's blue cloth lettered and decorated in gold on the spine panel, top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. Limited edition. One of 1000 unnumbered copies. Text in French. The text employed is the revised Paris edition of 1787. That of the Episodes is the version published in 1912. "VATHEK is undoubtedly the finest European imitation of the ARABIAN NIGHTS. No one else has been able to create the bizarre detail, the curious blend of the ludicrous and the horrible, the tongue-in-cheek wryness of VATHEK. It is still very much worth reading." - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp. 26-7. "A work of great beauty, ingenuity, and imaginative perception, Beckford's VATHEK is a milestone of Romantic art and a tower to be climbed by all who wish to discover the outer limits of fantasy." - Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature IV, pp. 2023-28. The EPISODES are laced with the kind of bizarrerie and perversity found in VATHEK itself. This material was originally intended to be included with VATHEK (1786, as AN ARABIAN TALE) but was left out when Beckford’s associate, Samuel Henley, published the work prematurely, against Beckford’s wishes. The episodes were thought lost and were not recovered until 1909. A very good copy. (#178737).
Price: $150.00
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