Shorter Novels, Eighteenth Century

The collection features three novels from the late eighteenth century, showcasing a transition from Augustanism to Romanticism. In Rasselas, Samuel Johnson grapples with the world's miseries, embodying stoic endurance. Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto immerses readers in a fantastical escape from reality, while William Beckford's Vathek takes them on a magical journey to a lavish court and a haunting realm of perdition. Together, these works illustrate a shift from rationality to the imaginative excess that defines the Romantic Revival.