The Arabian Nights: Introduction by Wen-chin Ouyang

by Anonymous, Wen-chin Ouyang (Editor)

The most famous of all story collections, "The Arabian Nights, "also known as "The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, "is beloved around the world. Composed of Persian, Arabic, Greek, Indian, and other sources that accumulated over hundreds of years, these fabulous stories-within-stories have long fired readers' imaginations with an enchanted world of flying carpets, magic lamps, genies, demons, magicians and sorceresses, carnivorous giants, and bloodthirsty bandits.
Translation has played a key role in the formation of "The""Arabian Nights" as we know it, making it far more prominent in the West than it has ever been in the Arab world. Westerners' first discovery of some of the tales in the early eighteenth century sparked a feverish thirst for more, which led to compilations that freely adapted, reconfigured, and even added to the originals. The resulting love affair with the art, architecture, literature, cuisine, and culture of the East significantly remapped the European literary landscape.
Editor Wen-chin Ouyang has compiled a carefully chosen selection from influential English translations, showcasing the strengths of different translators, including Richard Burton, Edward Lane, Jonathan Scott, and John Payne. Here are Shahrazad, Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin, Ali Baba, and many more, in the most readable and enjoyable versions available.

Genres: Classics, Literature, Short Stories, Fiction, Middle East

920 pages, Hardcover

Published June 10, 2014

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun book. The stories use the all the same elements to instigate the action (magical lamps, impossible luck, genii, etc.) yet the stories are all still fantastic and unique.

[David Trowbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the translations were better than others, but overall pretty wonderful.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the Everyman's Library version of this book. It's an excellent collection of stories.