Recommendations
Books Like Vathek
Best books to read after Vathek by William Beckford
Readers who love Vathek by William Beckford are drawn to its combination of the most distinctive Oriental Gothic fantasy in English literature (written in French by an English eccentric at twenty-one), the Caliph's catastrophic pursuit of supernatural knowledge, and the ending in the Halls of Eblis where the damned wander with their hearts on fire. They want works that deal with the Oriental fantasy tradition, the Faustian supernatural bargain, and the eighteenth-century Gothic tale.
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The Arabian Nights
by Various
The companion — the source material and the tradition. The companion as the inspiration: Beckford uses the conventions and atmosphere of the Arabian Nights (the Caliph, the palace, the djinns, the magical merchants) as the setting for a tale organized around transgression, damnation, and the Faustian bargain
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Melmoth the Wanderer
by Charles Maturin
Maturin's companion — the wanderer cursed by his supernatural pact. The companion as the Gothic heir: both Vathek and Melmoth the Wanderer are organized around a figure of extraordinary power who transgresses the moral and supernatural limits, and both end in supernatural punishment
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The Monk
by Matthew Lewis
Lewis's companion — the monk Ambrosio's fall. The companion as the Western Gothic version of the same investigation: where Vathek uses the Oriental setting, Lewis uses the Catholic setting to investigate the same themes of transgression and supernatural punishment
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Faust
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The companion — Faust's bargain with Mephistopheles. The companion as the German investigation of the same Faustian theme: both Vathek and Faust are organized around the figure who desires transcendence, bargains for supernatural power, and discovers the cost is damnation
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Candide
by Voltaire
Voltaire's companion — the satirical philosophical tale. The companion as the French Enlightenment version: both Vathek and Candide are philosophical tales organized around a journey through a catastrophic world, and both use the foreign or Oriental setting to investigate the relationship between power, desire, and human suffering
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Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
Swift's companion — the satirical journey. The companion as the earlier eighteenth-century investigation of the same form: both Gulliver's Travels and Vathek are organized around a journey through an extraordinary world that exposes the gap between human aspiration and human reality
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge's companion — the mariner cursed to wander. The companion as the Romantic investigation of supernatural transgression and its consequences: both the Mariner and Vathek are figures who commit a transgression against the moral order and are punished with a form of supernatural isolation
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
Wilde's companion — Dorian's aesthetic transgression. The companion as the aestheticist heir: both Vathek and The Picture of Dorian Gray are organized around a beautiful, privileged figure who pursues aesthetic pleasure at the cost of moral constraint, and both end in a form of supernatural punishment
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