Overview: Husain Haddawy's rapturously received translation of The Arabian Nights is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. These stories (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories), told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse, first reached the West around 1700. They fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it. Collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from vivacious erotica, animal fables, and adventure fantasies to pointed Sufi tales, the stories of The Arabian Nights provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory. The present new translation by Husain Haddawy is of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript in the BibliothEque Nationale in Paris, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and is considered to be the most authentic. This early version is without the embellishments and additions that appear in later Indian and Egyptian manuscripts, on which all previous English translations were based.

Now as sumptuously packaged as they are critically acclaimed-- new deluxe trade paperback editions of the beloved stories. Husain Haddawy's rapturously received translation of The Arabian Nights is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. Readers of this classic will also want to own Sindbad, a collection of four later stories associated with the Arabian Nights tradition, including "Sindbad the Sailor" and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp."

Briefly tells the background of the 1001 Nights and includes its stories of demons, kings, slaves, princesses, and viziers.

Husain Haddawy's rapturously received translation of The Arabian Nights is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. These stories (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories), told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse, first reached the West around 1700. They fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it. Collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from vivacious erotica, animal fables, and adventure fantasies to pointed Sufi tales, the stories of The Arabian Nights provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory. -- from http://www.powells.com (Oct. 17, 2014).

The tales portray a world of magic, wish-fulfillment and pleasure, depicting the marriage of the supernatural to the ordinary and the sacred to the profane.

This volume of Indexes and an extensive English introduction completes the publication of the critical edition of The Thousand and One Nights, of which the first two volumes, the Arabic text and commentary, were published in 1984. For the first time, the oldest manuscript of this famous Arabic text is now completely accessible to scholars and interested readers. This third and final volume, which completes painstaking work of more than three decades, magnificently adds to the important and pioneering work by Muhsin Mahdi which has been lauded by so many.

The Sultan's new wife knows that her husband has executed all her predecessors. She therefore decides to arouse his curiosity by telling him a series of stories. In order to learn the end of each tale, the Sultan keeps her alive and becomes so infatuated that he agrees to let her live.

The stories of The Arabian Nights (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories) are famously told by the Princess Shahrazad, under the threat of death should the king lose interest in her tale. Collected over the centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from adventure fantasies, vivacious erotica, and animal fables, to pointed Sufi tales, these stories provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory. No one knows exactly when a given story originated, and many circulated orally for centuries before being written down; but in the process of telling and retelling, they were modified to reflect the general life and customs of the Arab society that adapted them?a distinctive synthesis that marks the cultural and artistic history of Islam. This translation is of the complete text of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and considered to be the most authentic.

This is a paperback reprint in two volumes of Muhsin Mahdi's classic edition of the oldest preserved manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights kept in the Biblioth que Nationale de France in Paris, which was originally published in three volumes (1984-1994). The reprint includes the original survey (in Arabic) of both the print and manuscript traditions of The Thousand and One Nights, with extensive notes and four appendices. Volume 1. Introduction by Aboubakr Chra bi; Preface by Muhsin Mahdi; Arabic Text Volume 2. Critical Apparatus; Description of Manuscripts; Indexes, Errata by Ibrahim Akel

This work is based on Muhsin Mahdi's reconstruction of the original Nights. The tales portray a world of magic, wish-fulfillment and pleasure, depicting the marriage of the supernatural to the ordinary and the sacred to the profane.

The Arabian Nights (v. 1) by Muhsin Mahdi (1990)

Husain Haddawy's "highly recommended" ("The Times") translation of "The Arabian Nights" is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version.

A medieval Middle-Eastern literary epic which tells the story of Scheherazade, a Sassanid Queen, who must relate a series of stories to her malevolent husband, the King, to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights, and every night she ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day. The individual stories were created over many centuries, by many people and in many styles, and they have become famous in their own right.

Now as sumptuously packaged as they are critically acclaimed--a new deluxe trade paperback edition of the beloved stories.

A translation based on a reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version of the famous tales offers the stories told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse.

Introduction and translation by Husain Haddawy

"These stories (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories), told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse, first reached the West around 1700. They fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it. Collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from vivacious erotica, animal fables, and adventure fantasies to pointed Sufi tales, the stories of The Arabian Nights provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory"--Publisher website (July 2007).Introduction -- World of the Arabian Nights -- Dissemination and manuscripts -- Printed editions -- Mahdi edition -- Past translations -- Present translation -- Guiding principles -- Prose -- Verse -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Note on the transliteration -- Map : the World of the Nights -- Arabian Nights -- Foreword -- Prologue : The Story of King Shabrayar and Shahrazad, his Vizier's Daughter -- Tale of the Ox and the Donkey -- Tale of the Merchant and his Wife -- Story Of The Merchant And The Demon -- First Old Man's Tale -- Second Old Man's Tale -- Story Of The Fisherman And The Demon -- Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban -- Tale of the Husband and the Parrot -- Tale of the King's Son and the She-Ghoul -- Tale of the Enchanted King -- Story Of The Porter And The Three Ladies -- First Dervish's Tale -- Second Dervish's Tale -- Tale of the Envious and the Envied -- Third Dervish's Tale -- Tale of the First Lady, the Mistress of the House -- Tale of the Second Lady, the Flogged One -- Story Of The Three Apples -- Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri -- Story Of The Hunchback -- Christian Broker's Tale : the Young Man with the Severed Hand and the Girl -- Steward's Tale : the Young Man from Baghdad and Lady Zubaida's Maid -- Jewish Physician's Tale : the Young Man from Mosual and the Murdered Girl -- Tailor's Tale : the Lame Young Man from Baghdad and the Barber -- Barber's Tale -- Tale of the First Brother, the Hunchbacked Tailor -- Tale of the Second Brother, Baqbaqa the Paraplegic -- Tale of the Third Brother, Faqfaq the Blind -- Tale of the Fourth Brother, the One-Eyed Butcher -- Tale of the Fifth Brother, the Cropped of Ears -- Tale of the Sixth Brother, the Cropped of Lips -- Story Of Nur Al-Din Ali Ibn-Bakkar And The Slave-Girl Shams Al-Nahar -- Story Of The Slave-Girl Anis al-Jalis And Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Khaqan -- Story Of Jullanar Of The Sea -- Translator's postscript.

Translates Muhsin Mahdi's edition of the fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript of "The Thousand and One Nights," in which a young woman tells a series of stories to her king to prevent her own death and that of other girls in the kingdom; contains the ten stories and twenty-five tales of the original version, as well as commentary on the work's origins, manuscripts, and translations.

The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them, and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses. People in different countries tell them differently, but they are always the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at the Cape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only in matters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meeting lions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold countries. There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales, just because long ago there were plenty of kings in the country. A gentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of king in Scotland in very old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, never forgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly in this century, in all sorts of languages. These ancient stories are the contents of the Fairy books. Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are given in this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia, Arabia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, but for grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books, of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse men and women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, and made the characters good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. The events were often supposed to happen in the reign of the great Caliph, or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in 786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death by the Caliph in a very cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories must have been told in their present shape a good long while after the Caliph died, when nobody knew very exactly what had really happened. At last some storyteller thought of writing down the tales, and fixing them into a kind of framework, as if they had all been narrated to a cruel Sultan by his wife. Probably the tales were written down about the time when Edward I. was fighting Robert Bruce. But changes were made in them at different times, and a great deal that is very dull and stupid was put in, and plenty of verses. Neither the verses nor the dull pieces are given in this book.

"[...]river Ganges itself, we read the praises of one of the kings of this race, who was said to be the best monarch of his time. His subjects loved him, and his neighbors feared him, and when he died he left his kingdom in a more prosperous and powerful condition than any king had done before him. The two sons who survived him loved each other tenderly, and it was a real grief to the elder, Schahriar, that the laws of the empire forbade him to share his dominions with his brother Schahzeman. Indeed, after ten years, during which this state of things had not ceased to trouble him, Schahriar cut off the country of Great Tartary from the Persian Empire and made his brother king. Now the Sultan Schahriar had a wife whom he loved more than all the world, and his greatest happiness was to surround her with splendour, and to give her the finest dresses and the most beautiful jewels. It was therefore with the deepest shame and sorrow that he accidentally discovered, after several years, that she had deceived him completely, and her whole conduct turned out to have been so bad, that he felt himself obliged to carry out the law of the land, and order the grand-vizir to put her to death. The blow was so heavy that his mind almost gave way, and he declared that he was quite sure that at bottom all women were as [...]".

Is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.

One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of stories collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars in various countries across the Middle East and South Asia. These collections of tales trace their roots back to ancient Arabia and Yemen, ancient Indian literature and Persian literature, ancient Egyptian literature and Mesopotamian mythology, ancient Syria and Asia Minor, and medieval Arabic folk stories from the Caliphate era. Though the oldest Arabic manuscript dates from the fourteenth century, scholarship generally dates the collection's genesis to somewhere between AD 800-900.

The Arabian NightsThis book is one of the classic book of all time.

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books are a series of twenty-five collections of true and fictional stories for children, published between 1889 and 1913. The best known books of the series are the twelve collections of fairy tales, known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors. In all, the volumes feature 798 stories, besides the 153 poems in The Blue Poetry Book.Contains thirty-four stories from the Arabian Nights, adapted for children. The story of Aladdin is in this volume as well as in the Blue Fairy Book.

The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898) Selected and Edited by Andrew Lang; generously Illustrated By Rene Bull and H. J. Ford. Andrew Lang is best known as one of the most important collectors of folk and fairy tales. The twelve fairy tale books he edited contain stories from around the world, collected from various sources, and translated mainly by his wife and other enthusiasts. The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them, and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses. Includes: The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor; The Story of Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves; Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp and many many more...

Why buy our paperbacks? Standard Font size of 10 for all books High Quality Paper Fulfilled by Amazon Expedited shipping 30 Days Money Back Guarantee BEWARE of Low-quality sellers Don't buy cheap paperbacks just to save a few dollars. Most of them use low-quality papers & binding. Their pages fall off easily. Some of them even use very small font size of 6 or less to increase their profit margin. It makes their books completely unreadable. How is this book unique? Unabridged (100% Original content) Font adjustments & biography included Illustrated About The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885), subtitled A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, is a celebrated English language translation of One Thousand and One Nights (the "Arabian Nights") - a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age (8th−13th centuries) - by the British explorer and Arabist Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890). It stood as the only complete translation of the Macnaghten or Calcutta II edition (Egyptian recension) of the "Arabian Nights" until the Malcolm C. and Ursula Lyons translation in 2008.

Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 - 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.