Accused of having an affair with a boy, William Beckford (1760–1844) retired to his estate at Fonthill, Wiltshire, where he constructed a faux-medieval abbey to house his art and antiquities. This book draws on contemporary records to detail his grandiose building plans, and to tell how, having spent his inherited wealth, he was forced to auction both his collection and the building itself, whose huge Gothic tower came crashing down soon after the sale.
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