William Beckford: Composing for Mozart

This biography documents the colourful life of William Beckford, who scandalized Victorian society by indulging in homoerotic and paedophile activities until the Tory administration exiled him. In his absence his nihilistic Arabian novel Vathek was pirated by a treacherous friend. Beckford spent his declining years in adventures abroad, and built a Gothic masterpiece, Fontwell Abbey, where he bathed in the rain with a sylph-like Albanian footman.