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AMS Press

Titles appearing in Art Book News Annual — January 2006

William Beckford and the new millennium.

Ed. by Kenneth W. Graham. (AMS studies in the eighteenth century; no.47)
AMS Press, ©2004    313 p.    $94.50    PR4092
0-404-63547-4

Beckford (d.1844), a fabulously wealthy heir to a sugar fortune, spent his time and money amassing a major collection of art, furniture, books, and curios and building a splendid Gothic Revival castle to house it. Ostracized from British society for his homosexuality, Beckford continued to collect, build, travel, and write, most notably the torrid Orientalist fantasy Vathek. The twelve essays of this collection provide much new thinking and research about this quintessential proponent of Romanticism, with essays on attitudes towards homosexuality in 18th-century England, Beckford's aesthetics, fiction, garden design, experiences in Portugal, and his architecture. The contributors are academics and independent scholars in France, the UK, the US, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, and Canada. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)