Fonthill Recovered : : a cultural history / / Caroline Dakers.

• Superior document: Comparative Literature and Culture
• VerfasserIn: Dakers, Caroline,
• Sonstige: Dakers, Caroline
• Place / Publishing House: London : : UCL Press,, 2018.
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Comparative Literature and Culture
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xxvi, 402 pages)

Fonthill, in Wiltshire, is traditionally associated with the writer and collector William Beckford who built his Gothic fantasy house called Fonthill Abbey at the end of the eighteenth century. The collapse of the Abbey's tower in 1825 transformed the name Fonthill into a symbol for overarching ambition and folly, a sublime ruin. Fonthill is, however, much more than the story of one man's excesses. Beckford's Abbey is only one of several important houses to be built on the estate since the early sixteenth century, all of them eventually consumed by fire or deliberately demolished, and all of them oddly forgotten by historians. Little now remains: a tower, a stable block, a kitchen range, some dressed stone, an indentation in a field. 'Fonthill Recovered' draws on histories of art and architecture, politics and economics to explore the rich cultural history of this famous Wiltshire estate. The first half of the book traces the occupation of Fonthill from the Bronze Age to the twenty-first century. Some of the owners surpassed Beckford in terms of their wealth, their collections, their political power and even, in one case, their sexual misdemeanours. They include Charles I's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the richest commoner in the nineteenth century. The second half of the book consists of essays on specific topics, filling out such crucial areas as the complex history of the designed landscape, the sources of the Beckfords' wealth and their collections, and one essay that features the most recent appearance of the Abbey in a video game.

Table of Contents

Introduction / Caroline Dakers Part one. The narrative The early history of Fonthill / David Roberts Fonthill from the Middle Ages to 1744 : the first Fonthill House / Neil Burton The Beckford era / Amy Frost The break-up of the Fonthill estate ; Fonthill in the nineteenth century ; Fonthill in the twentieth century ; Out of the ruins : new houses at Fonthill / Caroline Dakers Part two. The essays The geophysical survey west of Fonthill Lake / David Roberts The landscape of Fonthill / Min Wood The early paintings of Fonthill / Jeannie Chapel The Cottington and Bradshaw burials in Westminster Abbey / Susan Jenkins The wealth of the Beckfords / Sidney Blackmore The landscape at Fonthill : an assessment of the grottoes and their builders / Michael Cousins William Thomas Beckford : between dalliance and duty / Lawrence Klein Reading Vathek and Fonthill Abbey : William Beckford's architectural imagination / Peter N. Lindfield and Dale Townshend Fonthill and its Maecenae : works of art lost and found / Martin P. Levy Little Ridge / Michael Drury The Smithsons at Upper Lawn Pavilion / Amy Frost Fonthill Abbey, terror and videogames at the British Library / Greg Buzwell Epilogue / Caroline Dakers.