1The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1
'The bride then came surrounded by her slave girls like the moon among stars or a matchless pearl set among others on a string.'
When the beautiful Shahrazad gives herself to the bloody-handed King Shahriyar, she is not expected to survive beyond dawn. But using her wit and guile, she begins a sequence of stories that will last 1001 nights: stories of 'ifrits and money-changers, prices and slave girls, fishermen and queens, and magical gardens of paradise. This volume also includes the well-known tale of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'.
Along with this landmark new translation, Robert Irwin's introduction discusses the many cultures The Arabian Nights has drawn on and the elaborate structure of the story-within-a-story that defines the collection, as well as the importance to the Nights of locked doors, sex, and the recurring themes of money, merchants and debts. This edition also contains suggestions for further reading, a glossary, maps and a chronology.
When the beautiful Shahrazad gives herself to the bloody-handed King Shahriyar, she is not expected to survive beyond dawn. But using her wit and guile, she begins a sequence of stories that will last 1001 nights: stories of 'ifrits and money-changers, prices and slave girls, fishermen and queens, and magical gardens of paradise. This volume also includes the well-known tale of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'.
Along with this landmark new translation, Robert Irwin's introduction discusses the many cultures The Arabian Nights has drawn on and the elaborate structure of the story-within-a-story that defines the collection, as well as the importance to the Nights of locked doors, sex, and the recurring themes of money, merchants and debts. This edition also contains suggestions for further reading, a glossary, maps and a chronology.
The Arabian Nights was a collection of popular, vernacular tales that was actually rather despised by scholars – the Arabic apparently is quite rough, compared to the elegance of the Farsi used in the much better known, more established and highly valued Persian romances of the time. The Nights tales were considered trifles and not looked after – the same has happened with a lot of early children’s literature. We don’t have a lot of it because no one saw fit to preserve it. [source]
Andrei Codrescu
Burton’s extraordinary footnotes are a book on their own, and his translation, hard-going at first, takes English to amazing heights. [source]
Issandr El Amrani
This translation is really significant. It is a beautiful edition of one of my favourite books. [source]
