First published in 1786 as An Arabian Tale, from an Unpublished Manuscript
Copyright © 2020 by Horror Writers Association
Introduction © 2020 by Joe R. Lansdale
Additional supplemental material © 2020 by Eric J. Guignard and Leslie S. Klinger
Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks
Cover design and illustration by Jeffrey Nguyen
Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
Originally published as Vathek © William Beckford, 1816. Translated from French by Samuel Henley.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks
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Originally published as An Arabian Tale, from an Unpublished Manuscript in 1786. First published as Vathek in 1816. This edition issued based on the third edition, revised and corrected, published in 1816 in England by W. Clarke.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Beckford, William, author. | Lansdale, Joe R., writer of introduction. Title: Vathek / William Beckford ; with an introduction by Joe R. Lansdale. Other titles: Vathek. English
Description: Naperville, IL : Poisoned Pen Press, [2020] | Series: Haunted library of horror classics | “Originally published as An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished manuscript in 1786. This edition is based on the third edition, revised and corrected, published as Vathek in 1816 in England by W. Clarke, London.”
Identifiers: LCCN 2019059642 | (trade paperback)
Subjects: GSAFD: Gothic fiction. | Horror fiction.
Classification: LCC PQ1957.B29 V313 2020 | DDC 843/.5--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059642