Though hardly destitute by the end of his life, Beckford had managed to lose most of his holdings and was valued at less than £80,000 (less than $1 million U.S. today) upon his death at the age of eighty-three, leaving behind two grown daughters (each married into nobility), and a legacy of artistic unconventionality and luxuriant patronage. Vathek slowly gained cult status and is recognized today as an important example of Gothic literature, influencing the poets and writers of nineteenth century Romanticism.

Suggested Discussion Questions for Classroom Use

1. Vathek is a unique novel in that there is no hero or heroine. The protagonist caliph is villainous, as are the antagonists that counter him. Readers are at a loss for a likeable character to empathize with or to “root for.” In what other ways does author William Beckford instead draw in the reader to keep them vested throughout this story?

2. Vathek’s insatiability for knowledge drives the plot of this story. “…for he wished to know everything; even sciences that did not exist.” What does this mean to you? Can you imagine any sciences that do not exist, but perhaps someday could?

3. The closing decree against Vathek, Carathis, and Nouronihar, et. al. was that once their hearts took fire, they “…at once lost the most precious of the gifts of heaven—HOPE.” Do you agree with this statement that hope is the most valued notion humans have? Or do you disagree? What else could be argued as more important than hope?

4. After telling in great and lengthy detail about the fall and ultimate punishment of Vathek and company, William Beckford ends the story with a singular line (almost as an afterthought) regarding Gulchenrouz—who played a relatively minor role in the story—indicating that he passed his life in “undisturbed tranquility, and the pure happiness of childhood.” Why do you think the author ended the story in such a way?

5. Vathek’s greatest success seems to have come by way of influencing other authors, including Lord Byron and John Keats in the nineteenth century, and H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith in the twentieth, who all cited the book as inspirational in its style and imaginative qualities. What elements in the book or the literary style of the author could you see as inspirational to yourself or to other authors?

6. The term of Orientalism is used today to define a method of viewing Arabic people and culture in distorted and “uncivilized” or harmful ways. Often this image has been employed to reflect Western culture (i.e., “us” being readers of English or other Latin-based language) as familiar and holding socially acceptable views, contrasted against Eastern or “Oriental” culture, which is portrayed as strange, irrational, and often barbaric. Do you think this novel succeeded (at least partly) because of its Oriental setting, which made for sensationalist reading in its time (the late eighteenth century)? Could this book have been just as successful if the author had changed the setting and culture to any other land and people?