‘Reason’ and ‘Fancy’ are my Sun and Moon. The first dispels vapours and clears up the face of things, the other throws over Nature a dim haze and may be styled the Queen of Delusions.
William Beckford
My thanks to Sidney Blackmore, Secretary of the Beckford Society, who posted me a copy of the latest Beckford Journal after seeing my recent posts about Fonthill Abbey and William Beckford’s curious fantasy, Vathek. The existence of a long-running journal and society devoted to someone few people today will have heard of isn’t so surprising—I’ve known members of the various Arthur Machen societies for years (Hi Mark!)—but the Beckfordites have an edge with their production values: volume 17 features colour views of Fonthill, inside and out. The essays are detailed and authoritative, the quote above is lifted from ‘The Poetic Sensibility of an Enfant Terrible: Beckford and the Esemplastic Power of His Imagination’ by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi.
There’s a site for the Beckford Society here but the pages are currently incomplete. The older site is located here and includes a list of earlier numbers of the journal.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Vathek illustrated
• Fonthill Abbey