According to Jorge L. Borges, who greatly appreciated this extravagant account, in certain pages of Vathek is found, as in no previous book, supernatural horror in its pure state. William Beckford (1759-1844) belonged to an aristocratic English family and inherited from his father a considerable fortune. He was a great collector of artistic objects and precious books, and to house these treasures began to build in Fonthill a fantastic palace, which he could not see finished. Beckford was the prototype of the extravagant and cultured, rebellious and marginal British aristocrat. He lived many years in different countries of Europe and wrote several works in which he described his travels. Vathek (Tale drabe), an account of a caliph given to the devil, is perhaps his most famous work. It was greatly admired by Mallarmé and Borges, who pointed out its precursor character, and has not stopped being read with pleasure by innumerable readers since it was published in 1787.