Product Description

This first of four volumes accurately translating the wonderful tales of the Arabian nights.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #269622 in Books
• Published on: 1986-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 678 pages

Customer Reviews

Not for scholars or prudes
The Book of the 1001 Nights (otherwise known as the Arabian Nights) is a classic collection of Arabic tales, built up mainly between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, that are consistently readable and vary delightfully in content and genre. Perhaps most appealing are the tales of magic and of travel in weirdly exotic lands. Many of them evoke a world of fabulously wealthy merchants and generous sultans, with a keen taste for beautiful gardens, beautiful women, rich food and scents, music and wine, and a readiness to befriend the poor. No one who enters this imaginary world will ever forget it.
But the English reader faces a problem: none of the available versions is ideal. The best is that by Husain Haddawy (The Arabian Nights, 1990), which offers the text of the oldest surviving manuscript in a translation that is both accurate (according to the experts) and highly readable; unfortunately, it amounts to only a fifth or less of the complete text, while his 'Arabian Nights, II' (1995) is only a very partial supplement. Sir Richard Burton's nineteenth-century translation offers a complete version in a style that is almost unreadable. More attractive is the version given here (in a four-volume set, totalling 3,000 pages), which sustains literary grace not only in the prose sections but also in the numerous short poems that are interspersed. The drawback is that it is based not on an original Arabic text but on a French translation by Mardrus (published around 1900) that is notorious for the liberties it takes with the text - adding some stories, omitting others, and paraphrasing freely according to the taste of the time, which was for the sexy and exotic. See Robert Irwin, 'The Arabian Nights: A Companion', pp. 37-40, which concludes, 'Powys Mathers did a good job on Mardrus's French, but whether the job was worth doing in the first place is another matter.' However, until a new English version of the complete text appears (French readers are much better served), the readability and completeness of this version arguably outweigh its lack of authenticity and lapses in taste.

An excellent read
An ideal holiday book, or just to read when you feel like escaping. I really enjoyed reading this book and have since bought it for friends who have also loved it. I just found it a pleasure to read and one of the best 1001 nights books I've read, full of old classics and new un yet heard stories.

An excellent read
An ideal holiday book, or just to read when you feel like escaping. I really enjoyed reading this book and have since bought it for friends who have also loved it. I just found it a pleasure to read and one of the best 1001 nights books I've read, full of old classics and new unyet heard stories.