FOR FURTHER READING

Important English Translations of the Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories . Translated into French from the Arabian MSS. by M. Galland of the Royal Academy; and Now Done into English from the Last Paris Edition. 4 vols. London: Longman, 1783.

Beloe, William, trans. Arabian Tales; or, A Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 3 vols. London: Faulder, Hookham and Carpenter, 1794. Includes a preface.

———, trans. Miscellanies, Consisting of Poems, Classical Extracts, and Oriental Apologues. 3 vols. London, 1795.

Burton, Sir Richard F., trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 10 vols. London: Kamashastra Society, 1885-1886.

Dulcken, H. W., ed. Dalziel’s Illustrated Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. 2 vols. London: Ward and Lock, 1865.

Forster, Edward, trans. The Arabian Nights. 5 vols. London: Miller, 1802. Includes a preface.

Gough, Richard, trans. and ed. Arabian Nights Entertainments. Translated into French from the Arabian MSS. by M. Galland, and now rendered into English. 4 vols. London: Longman, 1798. Includes a preface.

Hanley, Sylvanus, trans. and ed. Caliphs and Sultans: Being Tales Omitted in the Usual Editions of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. London: Reeve, 1868.

Heron, Robert, trans. Arabian Tales; or, The Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 4 vols. Translated from the original Arabic into French by Dom Chavis, a native Arab, and M. Cazotte; translated into English by Robert Heron. Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute, 1792. Includes a preface.

Kirby, W. F., trans. New Arabian Nights: Selected Tales Not Included in Galland or Lane. London: Sonnenschein, 1882.

Lamb, George, trans. New Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, Selected from the Original MS. by Jos. von. Hammer; Now First Translated into English. 3 vols. London: Henry Colburn, 1826. Includes a preface.

Lane, Edward William, trans. and ed. A New Translation of the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights; Known in England as the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. London: Charles Knight, 1838-1840. In 32 parts. Includes copious notes by Lane; illustrated with many hundred woodcuts.

Payne, John, trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: Now First Completely Done into English Prose and Verse, from the Original Arabic. 9 vols. London: Villon Society, private subscription, 1882-1884. A well-informed book-length essay is appended to vol. 9.

———, trans. Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta (1814-1818) Editions of the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Not Occurring in the Other Printed Texts of the Work, Now First Done into English. 3 vols. London: Villon Society, private subscription, 1884.

———, trans. Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp; Zein ul Asnam and the King of the Jinn: Two Stories Done into English from the Recently Discovered Arabic Text. London: Villon Society, private subscription, 1889.

———, trans. Abou Mohammed the Lazy, and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights. Publications of the John Payne Society. Olmey: Thomas Wright, 1906.

Scott, Jonathan, trans. and ed. Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, Translated from the Arabic and the Persian. Shrewsbury: J. and W. Eddowes, 1880.

———, trans. The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Carefully Revised and Occasionally Corrected from the Arabic. To Which Is Added, a Selection of New Tales, Now First Translated from the Arabic Originals. 6 vols. London: Longman and Hurst, 1811. Includes an introduction, notes, and engravings.

Torrens, Henry, trans. Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: From the Arabic of the Ægyptian Ms., edited by Wm. Hay Mcnaghten. London: Allen, 1838.

Historical Contexts

Ahsan, Muhammad Manazir. Social Life Under the Abbasids, 170-289 AH, 786-902 AD. London: Longman, 1979. A serious piece of scholarship with a careful survey of primary sources from the Abbasid period.

Donini, Pier Giovanni. Arab Travelers and Geographers. London: Immel Publishing, 1991. Helpful survey of geographical literature

Guthrie, Shirley. Arab Social Life in the Middle Ages: An Illustrated Study. London: Saqi Books, 1995. Misleadingly titled, the book deals specifically with the work of al-Wasiti, a thirteenth-century painter of Islamic life who illustrated the Maqamat (“Assemblies”) of al-Hariri, a popular collection of stories about urban Arab rogues and tricksters whose main gift is an eloquence that allows them to buy their way in an increasingly difficult life.

Hamori, Andras. On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974. Includes a brilliant chapter on “The City of Brass” in the Arabian Nights. Apart from his contribution to understanding historical contexts, Hamori shows an interest in the aesthetics of narrative patterning.

Ibn Khallikan. Vitae illustrium virorum [Obituaries of the Notables]. 13 vols. Edited by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. Gottingen: Deuerlich, 1835-1850, Khallikan’s thirteenth-century biographical dictionary, Wafayat al-a’yan, is an excellent source for material on the medieval period.

Ibn Schahriyar, Buzurg. Aja’ib al-Hind [The Book of the Marvels of India]. Leiden: Brill, 1883-1886. An account of tenth-century adventures that can be helpful in studying Sinbad’s voyages.OK

Mas’udi, Ali ibn al-Husayn. The Meadows of Gold: The Abbasids. Translated and edited by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone. London: Kegan Paul, 1989. Barbier de Meynard’s French translation of Muruj al-dhahab , rendered in English; an important source book on medieval Islamic culture.

Østrup, Johannes Elith. Studien über 1001 Nacht. Translated by O. Rescher. Stuttgart: W. Heppeler, 1925. Rescher translated Østrup’s study from Danish into German in 1919; it deals with the history of the collection, suggesting possible Indian and Persian origins. Relying on al-Mas’udi’s discussion of the frame tale (see above), Østrup also suggests that the Arabic portion contains stories included by compilers like al-Tanukhi before it attained its current shape in the Mamluk period.

Von Grunebaum, Gustave E. Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946. Includes a chapter on the Greek elements in the collection, in keeping with the author’s scholarly, Orientalist studies of Islamic literature.

Weber, Henry. “Introduction.” In his Tales of the East (3 vols.); Vol. 1: Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, New Arabian Nights. Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne, 1812. In addition to containing many tales from the Arabian Nights, this book provides an excellent and relatively thorough reading of the social and historical context of the tales.

History of the Book

Abbott, Nabia. “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand Nights’: New Light on the Early History of the Arabian Nights.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 8:3 (July 1949), pp. 129-164. Discusses the most important documentary evidence regarding the provenance of the book’s title and the realism of some of the sections set in Baghdad.

Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights.” In Selected Non-Fictions, edited by Eliot Weinberger. New York: Penguin, 1999, pp. 92-109. Contains both good scholarship and sharp critical sense.

Brockway, Duncan. “The Macdonald Collection of the Arabian Nights: A Bibliography.” Muslim World 61:4 (1971), pp. 256-266; 63:4 (1973), pp. 185-205; and 64:1 (1974), pp. 16-32. A bibliography of the best collection available; also includes some of D. B. Macdonald’s personal correspondence.

Burton, Richard. “Terminal Essay.” In his Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol. 10. London: Kamashastra Society, 1885-1888. The most detailed apology for Burton’s project; scholarly, nevertheless central to any study of translations.

Chauvin, Victor. Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes ou relatifs aux arabes publiès dans L’Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885. Vols. 4-6 and 9. Liege: H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1902. The earliest bibliographic and scholarly coverage of allusions, readings, and references to the collection.

———. La récension égyptien des Mille et une nuits. Brussels: Société Belge de Librarie, 1899. Complements other studies of the Egyptian compilations of the Arabian Nights.

Hunt, Leigh. “New Translations of the Arabian Nights.” Westminster Review 33 (October 1839), pp. 101-137. Perhaps the best example of Romantic criticism.

Knipp, C. “The Arabian Nights in England: Galland’s Translation and Its Successors.” Journal of Arabic Literature 5 (1974), pp. 44-54. The earliest scholarly record and evaluation of the reception of Galland’s translation.

Littmann, Enno. “Alf Layla wa-Layla.” In The Encyclopedia of Islam. Second edition. Leiden: Brill, 1960, vol. 1, pp. 358-364. An early scholarly consideration of the book, its appearance, translations, and Arabic context.

Macdonald, D. B. “A Bibliographical and Literary Study of the First Appearance of the Arabian Nights in Europe.” Library Quarterly 2:4 (October 1932), pp. 387-420. One of the earliest and most thorough surveys of the European history of the collection.

———. “A Preliminary Classification of Some MSS of the Arabian Nights.” In A Volume of Oriental Studies, Presented to Edward G. Browne on His 60th Birthday, edited by T. W. Arnold and Reynold A. Nicholson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922, pp. 304- 321. The most thorough philological and manuscript study of the time.

———. “A Missing MS of the Arabian Nights.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1913), p. 432. Among the earliest efforts to build on Zotenberg’s research and trace Galland’s manuscripts.

———. “Lost MSS of the Arabian Nights and a Projected Edition of That of Galland.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1911), pp. 219-221. Also among the earliest efforts to build on Zotenberg’s research and trace Galland’s manuscripts.

———. “Maximilian Habicht and His Recension of the Thousand and One Nights.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1909), pp. 685-704. Credits Habicht with making an effort to revise the book in an effort to establish a definitive text, rather than edit an existing one.

———. “On Translating the Arabian Nights.” In two parts: The Nation 71:1835 (August 30, 1900), pp. 167-168, and 71:1836 (September 6, 1900), pp. 185-186. Insightful notes on the history of the tales as they appear in European languages.

Mahdi, Muhsin. The Thousand and One Nights (Alf Laylah wa-Layla) from the Earliest Known Sources, Leiden: Brill, 1994, pp. 1-41.

al-Musawi, Muhsin J. “The Growth of Scholarly Interest in the Arabian Nights.” Muslim World 70:3 (1980), pp. 196-212. An early study of scholarship in the field.

———. Scheherazade in England: A Study of Nineteenth-Century English Criticism of the Arabian Nights. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1981. The first study of literary taste in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England through critical responses to the Arabian Nights, with an extensive bibliography of periodical and other criticism; it has become the source, acknowledged or otherwise, for later research.

Payne, John. “The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: Its History and Character.” In his The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, vol. 9. London: Villon Society, 1884. A study basic to any reading of the literary characteristics of the text and context of the Arabian Nights.

Schwab, Raymond. L’auteur des Mille et une nuits: Vie d’Antoine Galland. Paris: Mercure de France, 1964. Sets Galland’s translation within French and Orientalist traditions.

Zotenberg, Hermann. Histoire de ‘Al ’ al-Dn: ou, La Lampe merveilleuse: Texte arabe publié avec une notice sur quelques manuscrits des Mille et une nuits. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1888. One of Zotenberg’s many contributions to the study of single tales and the collection as a whole, including its manuscript tradition, and history.

Literary Contexts

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Although the book does not deal with the tales, its analysis of humor and carnival is useful for any study of the barber’s cycle in the Arabian Nights.

Gissing, George. Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. 1898. London: Gresham, 1904. Gissing draws attention to Dickens’s use of the Arabian Nights.

Ireland, Alexander. The Book-Lover’s Enchiridion: Thoughts on the Solace and Companionship of Books. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1883. An early account of the best books and their appeal. Ireland points out the relevance of the tales to English literature.

al-Musawi, Muhsin J. “Elite Prose.” In Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, edited by Roger Allen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 101-133. An introduction to the volume’s coverage of prose genres in the post-classical period.

———. Anglo-Orient: Easterners in Textual Camps. Tunis: University Publications, 2000. A study of a number of texts, attitudes, and figures that make up the Orientalist tradition.

The Arabian Nights and Romanticism

Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. Tennyson: The Growth of a Poet. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960. Buckley’s commentary on Tennyson’s poem “Recollection of the Arabian Nights” is of great critical significance.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. London: William Heinemann, 1895. Many of Coleridge’s critical insights built on his readings of the Arabian Nights.

Henley, W. E. “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.” Scribner’s Magazine 14:1 (July 1893), pp. 56-62. A poem that takes as a point of departure one of the calender’s tales in order to depict a sense of disillusionment.

———. Views and Reviews: Essays in Appreciation. Vol. 6 of The Works of W. E. Henley (7 vols.). London: David Nutt, 1908. The chapter on the Arabian Nights is the ultimate example of the Romantic view of the work and sets the tone for Romanticism as a constant element in literature and culture.

Hunt, Leigh. “Genii and Fairies of the East: The Arabian Nights.” Leigh Hunt’s London Journal 1:30 (October 22, 1834), pp. 233-237. Perhaps the most insightful explanation of the Romantic appeal of the Arabian Nights.

Scott, Sir Walter. Preface to Ivanhoe. Edited by W. M. Parker. Everyman’s Library. London: Dent, 1965. Scott explains his view of the translation of the Arabian Nights.

The Arabian Nights: Genres and Arts in the West

Axon, William. “The Thousand and One Nights.” Bookman 31 (March 1907), p. 258. Relates the Arabian Nights to English fiction.

Irwin, Robert. “The Arabian Nights in Film Adaptations.” In The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, edited by Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004, vol. 1, pp. 22-25. The film industry and the Nights.

Critical Readings of the Tales

Bagehot, Walter. “The People of the Arabian Nights.” National Review 9 (July 1859), pp. 44-71; reprinted In Littell’s Living Age 62:788 (July-September 1859), pp. 327-342. A serious and controversial critical assessment.

Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine. Les Mille et une nuits; ou, La Parole prisonnière. Paris: Gallimard, 1988. An important reading of the narrative as life, and of the implications of silence and speech.

Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Thousand and One Nights.” In his Seven Nights, translated by Eliot Weinberger; introduction by Alastair Reid. New York: New Directions, 1984. Insightful contemporary support for early Romantic readings.

Caracciolo, Peter L., ed. The Arabian Nights in English Literature: Studies in the Reception of The Thousand and One Nights into British Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. A good collection of articles.

Chesterton, G. K. “The Everlasting Nights.” In The Spice of Life and Other Essays, edited by Dorothy Collins. Beaconsfield, UK: Darwen Finlayson, 1964. An insightful aesthetic response.

Conant, Martha Pike. The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1908. The earliest and most scholarly contemporary study of the Oriental tale as a genre in English literature.

Farmer, Henry George. The Minstrelsy of the Arabian Nights: A Study of Music and Musicians in the Arabic Alf laila wa laila. Bearsden, Scotland: privately issued, 1945. The best and earliest study of music in the Arabian Nights.

Ghazoul, Ferial Jabouri. The Arabian Nights: A Structural Analysis. Cairo: Cairo Associated Institution for the Study and Presentation of Arab Cultural Values, 1980. The earliest rigorous structural study of the tales.

Gerhardt, Mia Irene. The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights. Leiden: Brill, 1963. A pioneering study with a modern bent of mind, away from the philological approach of the nineteenth and early twentieth.

Irwin, Robert. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Allen Lane, 1994. A lucid, helpful guide that makes extensive use of early scholarship.

Mew, James. “The Arabian Nights.” Cornhill Magazine 32 (December 1875), pp. 711-732. One of the early studies of the literary significance of the Arabian Nights.

Naddaff, Sandra. Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the Aesthetics of Repetition in the 1001 Nights. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991. A significant reading of a limited number of tales that demonstrate the technique of repetition.

Pinault, David. Story-Telling Techniques in The Arabian Nights. Leiden: Brill, 1992. Focuses on the ransom motif in a selected number of tales.

Taylor, W. C. “New Arabian Tales.” Foreign Quarterly Review 14 (December 1834), pp. 350-369. An important reading of certain tales from an aesthetic perspective.

Todorov, Tzvetan. 1973. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Translated by Richard Howard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975. Includes a chapter on the concept of the marvelous in the tales.

———. “Narrative Men.” In his Poetics of Prose, translated by Richard Howard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. A significant equation between character as action and narrative, and between narrative and life.

Contemporary Reference Works

Mahdi, Muhsin. The Thousand and One Nights: From the Earliest Known Sources: Part 3: Introduction and Indexes. Leiden: Brill, 1994. A careful and meticulous piece of scholarship for the researcher and scholar.

Marzolph, Ulrich, and Richard van Leeuwen, eds. The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Useful guide of a general nature for the common reader, with headings, notes on translations, tales, and characters.