

Transcribed from the 1887 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                        CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY

                                * * * * *





                               THE HISTORY
                                  OF THE
                              CALIPH VATHEK


                                    BY
                            WILLIAM BECKFORD.

                        [Picture: Printer's mark]

                       CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
                _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
                                  1887.




INTRODUCTION


William Beckford, born in 1759, the year before the accession of King
George the Third, was the son of an Alderman who became twice Lord Mayor
of London.  His family, originally of Gloucestershire, had thriven by the
plantations in Jamaica; and his father, sent to school in England, and
forming a school friendship at Westminster with Lord Mansfield, began the
world in 