The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, also known as 1001 Arabian Nights, or simply the Arabian Nights, is a piece of classic Arabic literature[?] in the style of a frame tale. Shahryar (or Schriyar), king of an unnamed island "between India and China", is so shocked by his wife's infidelity that he kills her and gives his vizier an order to get him a new wife for every night (in other versions, every third night). After his time with her he kills her. When this has been going on for some time, Sherezade[?]/Sheherazade[?], daughter of the vizier, volunteers to become the king's wife, and begins to tell him stories that end in cliff-hangers, so the king's curiosity will prevent him from having her killed. In the end of all those nights she has given birth to three sons and the king has long time ago changed his mind.

The tales vary widely; they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques[?] and Muslim religious legends. Some of the famous stories Sherezade spins are Aladdin's Lamp, Sindbad[?] the Sailor, and the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves[?]. Numerous stories depict djinns, magicians and legendary places. Real life historical caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common protagonist. Frequently, tales are wrapped inside other tales wrapped inside still others and so on, adding to the fantastic texture.

Sherezade has been taken by story-tellers as a symbol of themselves, the woman that saves her life just by telling tales.

Editions

The original Arabic compiler is reputedly storyteller Abu abd-Allah Muhammed el-Gahshigar[?] in the 9th century. The first modern Arabic compilation made out of Egyptian writings was published in Cairo in 1835.

The first European version was a translation into French (1707 - 1717) by Antoine Galland[?] of an earlier compilation that was written in Arabic. This book, Les Mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français probably included Arabic stories known to the translator but not included in the Arabic compilation. The Arabic compilation Alf Layla (A Thousand Nights), originating about 850 C.E., was in turn probably an abridged translation of an earlier Persian work called Hazar Afsanah (A Thousand Legends). Both Arabic and Persian written versions have been lost to modern readers. The present name Alf Layla wa-Layla (literally a "A Thousand Nights and a Night", i.e. "1001 Nights") seems to have appeared at an unknown time in the Middle Ages, and expresses the idea of a transfinite number since 1000 represented conceptual infinity within Arabic mathematical circles.

The work is made up of a collection of stories thought to be from traditional Arabic, Persian, and Indian stories. Some elements appear in the Odyssey. However, Aladdin's Lamp and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves appeared first in Antoine Galland's translation and cannot be found in the original writings. He heard them from an Syrian Christian storyteller from Aleppo named Hanna.

Perhaps the best-known translation to English speakers is that by Sir Richard Francis Burton, published as The Arabian Nights. Unlike previous editions, his 17-volume translation was not bowdlerized. Though published in the Victorian era, it contained all the sexual detail of the source material.

References and external links

• Stories From One Thousand and One Nights, (Lane and Poole translation): Project Bartleby edition (http://www.bartleby.com/16/)
• The Arabian Nights (includes Lang and Burton translations): Electronic Literature Foundation editions (http://www.arabiannights.org/index2.html)
• The Medieval Arabic Nights (http://www.arabiannights.org/medieval.html) - a study
• Jonathan Scott translation of Arabian Nights (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04/arnsc10.txt)