Three Gothic Novels: The Castle of Otranto; Vathek; Frankenstein
by Horace Walpole
from Penguin Classics
Four Gothic Novels: The Castle of Otranto; Vathek; The Monk; Frankenstein (World's Classics)
by Horace Walpole
from Oxford University Press, USA
Macabre and melodramatic, set in haunted castles or fantastic landscapes, Gothis tales became fashionable in the late eighteenth century with the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). Crammed with catastrophe, terror, and ghostly interventions, the novel was an immediate success, and influenced numberous followers. These include William Beckford's Vathek (1786), which alternates grotesque comedy with scenes of exotic magnificence in the story of the ruthless Caliph Vathek's journey to damnation. The Monk (1796), by Matthew Lewis, is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest, set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid. Frankenstein (1818, 1831) is Mary Shelley's disturbing and perennially popular tale of a young student who learns the secret of giving life to a creature made from human relics, with horrific consequences.
This collection illustrates the range and attraction of the gothic novel. Extreme and sensational, each of the four printed here is alos a powerful psychological story of isolation and monomania.
Vathek (Nonsuch Classics)
by William Beckford
from Nonsuch Publishing
The History of the Caliph Vathek
by William Beckford
from Borgo Press
"The descriptions of Vathek's palaces and diversions, of his scheming sorceress-mother Carathis and her witch-tower with the fifty one-eyed negresses, of his pilgrimage to the haunted ruins of Istakhar (Persepolis) and of the impish bride Nouronihar whom he treacherously acquired on the way, of Istakhar's primordial towers and terraces in the burning moonlight of the waste, and of the terrible Cyclopean halls of Eblis, where, lured by glittering promises, each victim is compelled to wander in anguish for ever, his right hand upon his blazingly ignited and eternally burning heart, are triumphs of weird coloring which raise the book to a permanent place in English letters." -- H. P. Lovecraft, in "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The Vision
by William Beckford
from Aegypan
"Beckford, well read in Eastern romance, caught the atmosphere with unusual receptivity." -- H.P. Lovecraft
THE VISION is a most unusual book by a most unusual young man. William Beckford (1760-1844) was about seventeen when he wrote this strange, surreal tale of mystic revelation. He may have written it to impress a tutor, the St. Petersburg born Alexander Cozens, who encouraged Beckford's delvings into the weird and fantastic. Five years later, Beckford was to pen his Oriental romance VATHEK, which has made his name immortal.
From his earliest years he had shown himself to be an amazing prodigy, writing and speaking French at age three, learning Latin and Greek by the time he was seven. He was also the richest commoner in Britain, who, in the course of his tour of the Continent to complete his education (the tour during which THE VISION was written) moved in such state that he was mistaken for the Holy Roman emperor traveling incognito. He became, ultimately, one of the most spectacular and eccentric aesthetes of all time, and a great connoisseur of all that is rare and beautiful.
The Best of Gothic Fiction
by Bram Stoker
Some of the best classics of Gothic fiction (being a mixture of horror and romance) are included in this collection (with an active table of contents):
The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole,
Vathek, William Beckford,
The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe,
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock,
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James,
The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux
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