William Beckford author page

William Beckford biography

William Beckford (1760–1844) was a British novelist, art collector and politician. He was born on 29 September 1760 in London, the only legitimate son of William Beckford, a wealthy plantation owner and twice Lord Mayor of London. He inherited a vast fortune from his father, including Jamaican sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans.

Beckford is best known as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), originally written in French. The novel tells the story of an Arabian caliph whose pursuit of forbidden knowledge and pleasure leads to his damnation. It became a major influence on Gothic and Romantic literature.

Alongside his writing, Beckford was an important art collector and connoisseur. He assembled one of the greatest collections of his time, acquiring paintings, rare books, furniture and objets d’art. He also commissioned Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, a vast neo-Gothic country house designed by James Wyatt. The abbey, though architecturally ambitious, was plagued by structural problems and partially collapsed after his death.

Beckford served as a Member of Parliament at various times between 1784 and 1820, though he was more devoted to literature and collecting than to political life.

He died on 2 May 1844 in Bath. His collections were gradually dispersed after his death, but his novel Vathek remains a landmark of eighteenth-century Gothic fiction.