This biography documents the colourful life of William Beckford, who scandalized Victorian society by indulging in homoerotic and paedophile activities until the Tory administration exiled him. In his absence his nihilistic Arabian novel "Vathek" was pirated by a treacherous friend. Beckford spent his declining years in adventures abroad, and built a Gothic masterpiece, Fontwell Abbey, where he bathed in the rain with a sylph-like Albanian footman. Reared in exotic isolation, Beckford grew up obsessed with dark grottoes, towers and awful images of the living dead. His life was a tragicomedy of a wealthy bisexual, who invented a forgery of elegant half-truths invented in retirement after the young Disraeli had sent him a homerotic epic based on his career. The faked letters and dream encounters with celebrities have led to the term "composing for Mozart".
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly Interesting!,
By Axel Xavier (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: William Beckford Hb (Hardcover)
I knew nothing about William Beckford, when stumbled upon the Fonthill architectual designs by accident and was enchanted by them, then when I researched further I found this gentleman to be quite compelling and if not conflicted, rather neurotic. A remarkable life, little known, but should be and this book will assist in that effort quite well.
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