Marion Dorn (1896-1964) was initially trained at Stanford in the graphic arts but in Paris transferred her energies to textile design. In 1923 she met E.McKnight Kauffer and begun a long personal and professional collaboration.

Vathek shows her clear sense of pattern and texture, with an uneasy blending with figurative elements. She just could not seem to harmonise the human body with semi-abstract elements in her Vathek illustrations in ways that Kauffer himself regularly demonstrated. She used several graphic styles for the ten images as if trying to find a solution to the fusing of abstract and figurative. Beckford's Gothic novel is ill served by some of Dorn's faux exotic female figures. One in particular (no.6 above)is like Dulac at his worst.

Vathek was the first autoligraphed book produced at the Curwen Press, which was to have a long and distinguished connection with the medium.