London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1786. First edition. Octavo (leaves measuring 195 x 115 mm). [viii], 334 pp. A Very Good copy, remarkably clean and fresh throughout. Appears to be lacking upper free endpaper, otherwise complete, with the errata leaf and the blanks. Unrestored contemporary tree calf with some edgewear, spine a bit rubbed, with upper joint beginning to separate at head (still holding firm). Early armorial bookplate of the Earl of Clare to upper pastedown and small ink ownership inscription (dated 1972) to preliminary blank. Leaf O3 with a tear, neatly repaired, with no loss of text. Overall a very appealing example.

The first edition of William Beckford's Gothic novel Vathek, first written in French and here translated by Beckford's literary collaborator, Samuel Henley, who also supplied over a hundred pages of commentary. This edition predates the first appearance of the text in French, which was published in Lausanne in December of 1786 (but with a title-page dated 1787).

The novel, which tells the story of the titular Caliph's corruption by a djinn and his journey into hell, stands as an early example of the Gothic genre, appearing between Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1765) and the works of Anne Radcliffe in the 1790s. Vathek went on to inspire Byron, Keats, Poe, and Lovecraft, the latter of whom called the novel, "Classic in merit, and markedly different from its fellows because of its foundation in the Oriental tale rather than the Walpolesque Gothic novel...Beckford, well read in Eastern romance, caught the atmosphere with unusual receptivity; and in his fantastic volume reflected very potently the haughty luxury, sly disillusion, bland cruelty, urbane treachery, and shadowy spectral horror...His seasoning of the ridiculous seldom mars the force of his sinister theme, and the tale marches onward with a phantasmagoric pomp in which the laughter is that of skeletons feasting under Arabesque domes" (Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature").

See Kenneth W. Graham, "Vathek in English and French," in Studies in Bibliography 28 (1975) pp. 153-166. Very Good + (Item #7807)