William Beckford:
The Vision (c. 1777)

 

The following manuscript, MS. Beckford c. 46, known as The Vision or The Long Story, has been transcribed with as much precision as possible. Beckford’s spelling is idiosyncratic and all misspellings have been retained in the transcription; nor has the erratic punctuation been corrected. The manuscript is paginated from page 1 to page 87; the pagination is provided within square brackets. Paragraphs have been retained in the transcription; line breaks have not.

Underlined words which would normally be rendered in italics have not been retained for the purposes of this online edition.

The manuscript is published with the kind permission of the Department of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

In time, this current edition - which excludes all fragmentary continuations of the manuscript and which retains none of the footnotes and reproduces none of the earlier wordings later changed by Beckford in the manuscript - will be replaced by a much more thorough edition, undertaken by the present editor in collaboration with Prof. Didier Girard.

Please use the links below to continue on to the edition of The Vision.


The Editor

Fonthill Splendens, Beckford's home during the composition of The Vision.