The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

Table of Contents

• Story Of King Shahryar And His Brother
• The Tale Of The Bull And The Ass
• The Fisherman And The Jinni
• The Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban
• King Sindibad and his Falcon
• The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot
• The Tale of the Prince and the Ogress
• The Tale Of The Ensorceled Prince
• The Porter And The Three Ladies Of Baghdad
• The First Kalandar's Tale
• The Second Kalandar's Tale
• The Third Kalandar's Tale
• The Eldest Lady's Tale
• Tale of the Portress
• The Tale Of The Three Apples
• ABU AL-ASWAD AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL

Alaeddin

Alaeddin

Notes from Xah Lee

Vast majority of Arabian Nights in English are censored out of shape. All sexual and cultural aspects are elided to conform to Western norms, leaving just phantasmagorical fairy tale of monsters.

Sir Richard Burton's translation is the second uncensored translation. (first is by John Payne)

The popular stories such as • “Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp” • “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, • “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor”, are not part of The Nights in its original Arabic versions but were added to the collection by Antoine Galland in ~1704. These stories, even in full uncensored version, are lackluster in comparison to the stories in Arabian Nights.

The Arabian Nights has origin in India, and is collected stories from years 700 AD onward. Stories are continuously added and edited from different Middle East countries and Egypt. So, there is really no one true Arabian Nights nor a sense of “complete” version.

The annotation here are by Xah Lee (me). Most are done in 2005. The text are based on Sir Richard Burton's uncensored and unabridged version.

The Arabian Nights, Introduction by Xah Lee.

Synopsis of the Tales.

One problem with Sir Richard Burton's translation is that it uses archaic and poetic English. I find this making it far more enjoyable, for literary reasons, on language and linguistics, like reading Shakespeare. But this is a problem for those who just want to read the stories.

Best modern uncensored translation in modern English is by Husain Haddawy.

See also: The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade by Edgar Allan Poe.