In short, he was born into money. Enough money he was able to have a fine education, and was even taught music by Mozart, although I’m uncertain of the caliber of Beckford’s musical skills.

He was well-traveled, well-educated, and perhaps totally decadent, accused of all manner of sexual debauchery with both women and men, and possibly young boys. He is noted for giving a lavish Christmas party where a dwarf answered the door, and food was in abundance and wine flowed as free as a downhill stream. The party is said to have taken place under an elaborate light show of some sort, and considering this occurred in the sixteenth century, the expense must have been enormous. It seems this elaborate party was one of the later influences for Vathek. For if there is one thing this short novel has is what that party had: Excess, a display of wealth, which in its strictest sense is representative of power, the obvious theme of Vathek.

Vathek is white-hot crazy, and considering, at least according to Beckford, it was written nonstop in French over three days and two nights, this is not surprising. It seems Beckford was trying to put a deep-sleep nightmare, or a waking dream, onto paper. A dream that feels like an episode from The Arabian Nights with a gothic nightmare inside of it.

The hero of Vathek, one Caliph Vathek, who has the evil eye, as well as some rather hedonistic desires, denounces Islam and, with assistance from his mother, sets out to obtain great supernatural powers and everlasting life. All of this, of course, involves a Satanic pact, as well as a travelogue of dark exploration, culminating in what might be described as an examination of the lower regions of Hell.

From one bizarre moment to the next, this novel taps into all those little hidden areas that our personalities guard or fear. It allows us to tour places most of us wouldn’t want to go, but don’t mind seeing through a kind of literary glass, like visiting an aquarium and observing a shark enjoy chunks of bleeding meat at mealtime.

Vathek can be rambling, uncertain of intent, and it has moments when its author seems to be overcome by the pure energy of the writing. It is humorous for a while, then less so, and finally so strange it nears running off the rails and tumbling into an abyss. But there is seldom a moment when it isn’t compelling. Even its failures are grand and stimulating, like watching a boxer who is knocked down repeatedly, continue to rise from the mat and keep on swinging.

To suggest this novel has not aged would be disingenuous, for it has, both in style and in social mores. In fact, its impact on earlier writers and their works outweighs the actual weight of the novel for the casual modern reader, but this steamy window into a historically important exercise in writing mania is significant to the fields of gothic and horror writing, as well as what was once referred to as Orientalism.