Recollections of the Late William Beckford of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath (Dodo Press)

William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844) was an English novelist, art critic, travel writer and politician. Having studied under Sir William Chambers and Alexander Cozens, he travelled to Italy in 1782 and promptly wrote a book on the subject: Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents; in a Series of Letters from Various Parts of Europe (1783). Shortly afterwards came his best-known work, the Gothic novel The History of the Caliph Vathek (1786), written originally in French and, as he was accustomed to boast, at a single sitting of three days and two nights. There is reason, however, to believe that this was a flight of imagination. It is an impressive work, full of fantastic and magnificent conceptions, rising occasionally to sublimity. His other principal writings are Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780), a satirical work, and Letters from Italy with Sketches of Spain and Portugal (1835), full of brilliant descriptions of scenes and manners.Lansdown, Henry Venn is the author of 'Recollections of the Late William Beckford of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath (Dodo Press)', published 2007 under ISBN 9781406535587 and ISBN 1406535583.