Get Discount 5% Off
Subscribe to our newsletters now and stay up-to-date with new arrivals, updates and deals.
Currency
Couldn't load pickup availability
Shorter Novels, Eighteenth Century - The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia; The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story; Vathek, an Arabian Tale
[Skip to Contents] The three novels collected here all belong to the later years of the eighteenth century. The first represents what may be called the last stand of Augustanism before that riot of fancy and imagination, as exemplified by the other two tales, that ushered in the Romantic Revival. Thus in Rasselas we have Johnson, with the fortitude of Atlas, supporting the miseries of the world on his broad shoulders; Horace Walpole shutting us up in his Castle of Otranto, away from reality and all reasonableness; and Beckford, in Vathek, transporting us on his magic carpet to the court of the grandson of Haroun al Raschid, and thence to a region of perdition and eternal fire, where all memory of Augustanism is irretrievably lost. They are strange company these three books, but they are nevertheless infallible indexes to the taste of their time. The fact that Rasselas in 1759 met with such enormous success and that The Castle of Otranto four years later met with perhaps an equal success, indicates as plainly as anything could that although people had not lost their admiration for Johnson, they were already tiring of good sense and quite willing to give free play to those wilder impulses in their natures that Augustanism had sought to discipline. But this time the tide turned with a vengeance! The grave Wordsworth, a romantic himself, is found deploring the frantic novels of this time, although Shelleys young and fiery imagination seized upon them with avidity, and, in Zastrozzi, he wrote an even more frantic one himself. But it was The Castle of Otranto, written in conscious reaction against the domesticities and sentiment of Richardson, with its plea that the material of the novel could be taken from anything but the events of ordinary life, that opened the gates onto the land of Romance. And in its train came all the rest of the Gothic and terror novelistsClara Reeve, Mrs. Radcliffe, Monk Lewis, Charles Maturinto mention only those who are now chiefly remembered. Vathek, however, stands alone, without predecessors or immediate followers,[viii] belonging to a quite un-English tradition, although the Oriental tale in one shape or another had quite a vogue in the eighteenth centuryif we may include such things as Collinss Persian Eclogues and Goldsmiths Chinaman, or even Rasselas itself, which, at least, has a nominal setting in the East. ......Buy Now (To Read More)
Ebook Number: 34766
Author: Beckford, William
Release Date: Dec 27, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English
Contributor (Author): Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784, Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797
Editor: Rhys, Ernest, 1859-1946
You may return most new, unopened items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. We'll also pay the return shipping costs if the return is a result of our error (you received an incorrect or defective item, etc.).
You should expect to receive your refund within four weeks of giving your package to the return shipper, however, in many cases you will receive a refund more quickly. This time period includes the transit time for us to receive your return from the shipper (5 to 10 business days), the time it takes us to process your return once we receive it (3 to 5 business days), and the time it takes your bank to process our refund request (5 to 10 business days).
If you need to return an item, simply login to your account, view the order using the "Complete Orders" link under the My Account menu and click the Return Item(s) button. We'll notify you via e-mail of your refund once we've received and processed the returned item.
We can ship to virtually any address in the world. Note that there are restrictions on some products, and some products cannot be shipped to international destinations.
When you place an order, we will estimate shipping and delivery dates for you based on the availability of your items and the shipping options you choose. Depending on the shipping provider you choose, shipping date estimates may appear on the shipping quotes page.
Please also note that the shipping rates for many items we sell are weight-based. The weight of any such item can be found on its detail page. To reflect the policies of the shipping companies we use, all weights will be rounded up to the next full pound.
Subscribe to our newsletters now and stay up-to-date with new arrivals, updates and deals.
Thanks for subscribing!
This email has been registered!
Product | SKU | Description | Collection | Availability | Product Type | Other Details |
---|