The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night; Volume 1 of 4

by Anonymous, E. Powys Mathers (Translator), Joseph-Charles Mardrus (Original Translator)

First Published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Middle East, Mythology, Unfinished

656 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 1986

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

[Ana Mardoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (Vol. 1) / 978-0415045391

I'm a bit of an "Thousand Nights" enthusiast -- I enjoy the stories immensely and I have four separate translations in my personal library. Several friends have asked me to discuss the differences between the editions, so I thought I'd present a four-way comparison and then talk about which version is best for which audience.

For the purposes of the four-way comparison, I will draw text from the opening tale of the two kingly brothers in order to highlight how each popular version handles "adult" content and racial content.

-- The Tale of King Shahryar and of his Brother, King Shahzaman --
Now there were in the King's palace certain windows that looked on to the garden, and, as King Shahzaman leaned there and looked out, the door of the palace opened and twenty women slaves with twenty men slaves came from it; and the wife of the King, his brother, was among them and walked there in all her bright beauty. When they came to the pool of a fountain they all undressed and mingled one with another. Suddenly, on the King's wife crying: 'O Masud! Ya Masud!', a gigantic negro ran towards her, embraced her, and, turning her upon her back, enjoyed her. At this signal, all the other men slaves did the same with the women and they continued thus a long while, not ceasing their kisses and embraces and goings in and the like until the approach of dawn.
-- Madrus & Mathers edition


-- The Tale of King Shahriar and of his Brother, King Shahzenan --
One day, Shahriar had started on a great hunting match, about two days' journey from his capital; but Shahzenan, pleading ill health, was left behind. He shut himself up in his apartment, and sat down at a window that looked into the garden. Suddenly a secret gate of the palace opened, and there came out of it twenty women, in the midst of whom walked the Sultaness. The persons who accompanied the Sultaness threw off their veils and long robes, and Shahzenan was greatly surprised when he saw that ten of them were black slaves, each of whom chose a female companion. The Sultaness clapped her hands, and called: "Masoud, Masoud!" and immediately a black came running to her; and they all remained conversing familiarly together.
-- Muhsin al-Musawi edition


-- The Tale of King Schahriar and of his Brother, King Schahzeman --
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.
-- Lang edition


-- The Tale of King Shahryar and of his Brother, King Shah Zaman --
Thereupon Shah Zaman drew back from the window, but he kept the bevy in sight espying them from a place whence he could not be espied. They walked under the very lattice and advanced a little way into the garden till they came to a jetting fountain amiddlemost a great basin of water; then they stripped off their clothes and behold, ten of them were women, concubines of the King, and the other ten were white slaves. Then they all paired off, each with each: but the Queen, who was left alone, presently cried out in a loud voice, "Here to me, O my lord Saeed!" and then sprang with a drop leap from one of the trees a big slobbering blackamoor with rolling eyes which showed the whites, a truly hideous sight. He walked boldly up to her and threw his arms round her neck while she embraced him as warmly; then he bussed her and winding his legs round hers, as a button loop clasps a button, he threw her and enjoyed her.
-- Burton edition

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For my money, the superior volume by far is the Madrus & Mathers edition. The editor and translator have deliberately worked the translation to be as readable to the English eye as possible, even making judicious choices about where to refrain from using diacritical points (single quote sound points, as in 'ain) in order to ease the reading experience. They've made a concerted effort to retain the adult content without being lewd, the racial content without descending into offensive caricature, the poetic content without overwhelming the reader, and the entire content without condensing the text and losing material. The Madrus & Mathers editions comprise four giant volumes, but the casual enthusiast will be more than satisfied with just volume one, and with over 600 pages of stories in the electronic edition, the reader will have plenty of reading material available.

For children, however, the superior volume is probably the Muhsin al-Musawi edition. This edition is condensed, but the editing was done with great care to maintain story structure and content. The adult content has been toned down considerably, the racial content has been handled tactfully, the extra songs and poems have been almost entirely removed, and there are interesting and attractive pictures in the electronic edition. My biggest complain here is that the adult content has been excised to a degree that almost brings unfortunate implications: when adultery is characterized as "conversing", the angry and jilted husband seems to be seriously over-reacting. Still, if you want a sanitized version of the tales, the al-Musawi edition is almost certainly the way to go.

I do not recommend the Lang edition. Lang's fairy tale collections, such as the color fairy tale books, are usually a delight, but his Arabian Nights edition is thin on content and heavily paraphrased. The stories are gutted to remove the adult content and shorten the tale length for children, but in many cases the changes are not carefully glossed over, and huge plot holes and unresolved threads are left dangling. I've never met a Lang reader who didn't ask me what was going on in one tale or other because the translation is so poorly rendered.

Neither do I recommend the Burton version. If anything, the Burton version has the exact opposite problems as the Lang version: Burton's edition lengthens the stories with extensively lewd descriptions and offensive racial imagery. The edition was also rendered in the 1800s, and the language within has not aged well -- there are all lot of "forsooth"s and "verily"s that bog down the reading. If you're interested in a historical analysis of how these tales have been rendered over the years, by all means become familiar with the Burton version, but if you're just looking for light bedtime reading, give the Burton edition a pass.

I hope that this comparison will be helpful. This particular listing here is for the Madrus & Mathers edition which I definitely recommend for adult readers.

~ Ana Mardoll

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only read the first of the four volume set - each one being in the 600+ page range, they don't make for short reading. Additionally, because the format is that of disconnected stories, there's absolutely no reason at all to sit down and try to plow through them all, one after the other.

As a resource and a reference, to traditional narratives and motifs as well as to old Arabic traditions, I find these stories incredibly valuable. Rhythms of storytelling and dialogue are completely distinct to their European cousins and they provide a fantastic counterpoint to what I grew up reading.

That being said, Mardrus's English translation of a French translation of an original text (at least, so I understand the process) is much closer to a Charles Perrault 17th century sensibility than it is to an early 19th century, latterly-commercially minded Grimm Brothers collection. These stories have not been sanitized any more than the early European works were, but because (I assume) because of the translation out of Arabic, linguistically, culturally, and politically, they have never gravitated to the top of the bookselling charts. With the exception of Aladdin and the Forty Thieves (or Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, what-have-you), most of these stories are unknown to people of European descent and have not had the opportunity to be sanitized.

I phrase it that way because many of the elements and motifs in these stories are horrific, and not in a gory sort of way. Rarely is an African portrayed who is not some kind of savage beast. Young girls have their sexual attractions extolled. How young? It's never said - teens? I think about the settlement of the West in U.S. history, with people getting married in their mid-teens and starting householding at ages much, much younger than we would consider adult today. Historically, I can rationalize this but personally I still find such representations repugnant.

That repugnancy is not an inherent reason to walk away for me, however. Early European stories, as I suggested, share many of these same features, if not exactly then of category and kind. Those stories have been told and re-told by authors so often that we no longer know that the punishment for Cinderella's step-sisters was to have their eyes torn out by crows at Cinderella's wedding. European tradition and history holds no corner on morality.

In sum - would I call these stories great storytelling? Not to my eyes and ears. Great literature to read to children? Selectively, sure. As a reference and research tool? Amazing.

[Elina Gomberg]

Well, this was not what I expected.

First, this is just one volume out of four. Second, not all of the stories are actually good, and most of the characters are just terrible. A friend of mine describes it very accurately: the characters in these stories all act like they are stuck in a terrible horror movie. Their decisions don't make any sense, and in some cases, they even know it. They are all over the top dramatic, people faint and cry in every story, and some characters die of a broken heart. Once you get used to that fact, and to the fact that there are stories within stories, you can start being entertained by these stories.
My favorite one in this collection was the story of The Tale of King Umar al-Numan and his Two Remarkable Sons, Sharkan and Du al-Makan. It's one of the few long detailed stories in this volume, and is the only one with remarkable female characters. There some nice plot twists, wars and cunning. There are fewer terrible decisions being made in this story.

As a woman reader, it bothers me that most of the women in these stories are terrible people, with the exception of Shahrazad and her younger sister and a few others. They are mostly liars and cheaters. And most of them don't have a problem being sold or given as a present. That's pretty terrible.

Also I was surprised by the racism in this book. I have never seen such a terrible description of black men. If you run into a black man in this story, he's a rapist, thief and murderer, unless they are eunuchs, in that case they he is just terrible person that will cause trouble for our beloved heroes.

Speaking of racism, it's really strange to see such a correlation between someone's appearance and their inner qualities. Also only white is beautiful, the whiter someone's skin is the more good looking they are considered. I just didn't expect it in a collection of Arab stories. And all beautiful people are good people. If someone is ugly then they are evil. This is a terrible message, on so many levels. I know that once people's appearances were considered to be indicatives of their personality, but this is just too over the top.

It was just a really strange experience reading this book.

[Collin A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was recently introduced to the Anonymously-written The Book if the Thousand and One nights during was last semester at my local university. I was deeply enthralled by the first few stories of merciful punishment and the guile and wit of Shahrazād herself. As you might expect, I was enthralled enough in these first few stories that I had to five into the first full-length volume!

After traversing eight chapters filled with Jinee, treachery, greed and sorcery, I can wholeheartedly say that the first volume is a delight to read. Perhaps what is most intriguing (and sometimes even shocking or devoting) is the way in which the reader is introduced to a vast aary of Arabian customs and Islamic principles (many of which still exist today). I strongly reckoned readers to read a noted and annotated version of the book as it sheds a light upon these customs and makes them easier to comprehend.

As to be expected, Shahrazād beautifully weaves in the heroic and sometimes vengeful role of women in her stories in order to create a harmonious balance in which she attempts to sway the kin who holds her captive.

The first volume is a definitely a great introduction and a great stop n' go read. However, don't hope to finish this is one sitting folks!

[Lynne King · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of four volumes that I purchased from The Folio Society many years ago and I really, when I have time, must reread this. It was quite magical if I recall.

I actually purchased it because I was living in Saudi Arabia at the time and it seemed the appropriate thing to do.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review concerns only Volume 1 of the translation by Mardrus and Mathers. To do justice to the full book, I will discuss the other volumes at a later date.

If The Thousand Nights and One Night has any unifying theme it is the redemptive power of storytelling. The basic premise of the book is that King Shahryar’s view of women has been poisoned after he catches his wife having sex with her slaves. His brother Shahzaman suffers the same fate, and later both kings are forced to have sex with a female Jinni while her male lover is asleep, after which Shahryar forms the conclusion that all women are faithless.

Shahryar’s solution is to marry the young virgins of his kingdom, and put them to death after their wedding night. After his wazir runs out of virgins for Shahryar to marry, the wazir’s daughter Shahrazad offers to marry the king. However Shahrazad has a strategy for staying alive. After her husband has consummated their marriage, she arranges for her sister to ask Shahrazad to tell a story.

Shahrazad’s stories are so bewitching that Shahryar is obliged to keep her alive to conclude her story the following night. However each night she leaves Shahryar with the promise of a new or continuing tale, and he puts off her execution for a thousand nights and one night (as the volume is obtusely called). I believe some versions of this great work last for less than 1,001 nights, whereas other versions are even longer.

Storytelling is Shahrazad’s saving grace. Furthermore her stories contain other characters who also save their lives by telling stories. Thankfully there appears to be an unlikely number of people who will forgive their intended victims if they are told an entertaining story. In one case a Jinni spares a man for telling a good story, even after the man accidentally kills the Jinni’s son.

Here we may suspect that there is some calculation on Shahrazad’s part, as she is schooling her husband that he should spare his wife due to her great art in storytelling. Indeed the tales may well be seeking to open the embittered king’s mind. The first stories may appear to pander to his prejudices about faithless women, but later stories start to reveal a world of greater sexual freedom where men and women can find more harmonious relationships, even without the woman being pure and unsullied.

And what a range of stories Shahrazad has to tell! She tells short parables about talking animals. She includes long passages in praise of Islam, with lists of moral homilies. (Some of these will not go down too well today, such as the ‘aphorism’ that Muslim women are either good wives, good mothers or harlots.) There is a long historical saga of battles between Muslims and Christians. There are fantasy tales with magical events in them. There are love stories, happy and unhappy, and tales of people telling how they lost a body part.

The tone of the stories varies wildly too. Some are wise and sententious, or intended to be. Some are scurrilous and saucy. Some are vulgar and humorous. Some are beautiful and romantic. The stories are further interspersed with illustrative poems.

What’s more the stories are intricately structured, so that stories are told within stories, and sometimes these stories include further stories. Bear in mind that the whole book is a story about a woman telling stories, and the layers seem almost like the movie Inception, which stacked a dream within a dream within a dream. What is more remarkable for an age where the art of printing was not yet well developed, the stories show an admirable level of control. Every story is wrapped up, and returns to the framing story, so that there are no loose ends.

I say that the book promotes the message that storytelling can save lives, but sadly this remains more of an idealistic wish on the part of the writers. Stories can enhance our lives, and we can learn valuable lessons from them. However, writing or telling a story has rarely saved a life. On the contrary many storytellers’ lives have been put in jeopardy by the stories they related, and I suspect that the writers of The Thousand Nights and One Night would find themselves at great risk if they tried writing these stories in their country of origin today.

While western writers have embraced the rich imaginative tales of The Thousand Nights and One Night, they have been despised by many Arabs as being badly-written. Certainly the stories are not without their faults. They are repetitive in their phrasing and plotting. Many of the characters are bland.

We are obliged to leave logic at the door, as is often the case with fantasy tales. Given that Shahryar spends all night having sex and listening to tales, and all day performing his royal duties, when does he have time to sleep? Why does he allow Shahrazad’s sister to be present while they have sex? Why does Shahrazad’s father wait every day with a winding sheet expecting her death, even after two hundred nights? Does he never see or hear from his daughter during the day?

There is also a good deal of vulgar and scatological humour, which sits uneasily with the book’s pieties. Speaking of which, one reason that The Thousand Nights and One Night have been condemned in certain circles is because of their supposedly un-Islamic content. Indeed I read that some Egyptian fundamentalists had called for them to be banned.

This criticism may seem a strange one at first. The book is filled with conventional Islamic phrases and pieties in every story. (“There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet” is repeated with monotonous regularity.) Even the talking animals appear to be devout Muslims. There are also one or two occasions when the story stops in order to recite pious advice.

Most significantly, the longest story in Volume 1 concerns a war between Christians and Muslims. Here the Muslims are presented as the virtuous side, and the Christians are presented as evil. This is done in broad vulgar terms with emphasis on the foul smell and poor fighting skills of the Christians. Subtlety is not one of the book’s virtues.

Christianity is embodied in the matriarch of the Christian fighters called Mother-of-Calamity. She is a grotesque woman whose farts blow up dust, who seduces young female slaves, and who brutally murders two of the Muslim leaders. Rather bizarrely she does this by disguising herself as a pious Muslim, and many of the most devout passages in Volume 1 are therefore spoken by an unbeliever and her followers. What’s worse she does the same trick a second time, and the doltish royal family are taken in again.

There is not much room for moral ambiguity here. All we can say is that the Muslim king dies a horrible and justified death after he rapes a Christian princess, and the princess is seen as a virtuous and brave Christian. Naturally this means that she soon converts to Islam. There is another tale in the volume where a hunchback is seemingly accidentally killed, and a Jew, Christian and Mussulman all believe themselves guilty and try to cover up their crime. Interestingly the story makes no distinction between the men of different faith and all are portrayed in a comically sympathetic manner.

Indeed it is here we begin to catch a glimpse of the problems with The Thousand Nights and One Night for many common interpretations of Islam. The book contains much that is hardly suitable for the pious eyes of any religion. This is no children’s book, and sexual passages are sprinkled throughout the stories.

Worse still this sexual activity is seemingly unrestricted. Three young girls cavort naked with a porter and exchange sexual banter about their private parts, yet the girls are safely and happily married off later. Homosexual males openly lust after other men, and the narrator offers no condemnation of their desires. A married woman has sex with a prince while her hunchback husband has his head stuffed down a privy by a Jinni. This is a level of sexual liberty that we would not now find in many of the countries in which the stories were written.

This may sound like a sexual free-for-all, but it is not. The young girls stop short of having pre-marital sex with the porter, however lewd their behaviour may have been. The married woman who has sex does so without having consummated her marriage to the hunchback. Homosexuals may be permitted some indulgence in this world, but there are no lengthy stories about gay characters that have happy endings.

We should also not assume that this is a liberal and kindly world. It is a brutal one, in which the axe hangs over the heads of many a character. The wazir Jafar is constantly on the point of being executed for failing to satisfy the demands of his ruler, the Harun al-Rashid. Unfaithful women are put to death, and one husband is exonerated from cruelly murdering his innocent wife after he mistakenly believes she cheated on him. This is a society of slaves and eunuchs, and the narrative rarely portrays any black character as virtuous.

The book’s attitudes may seem advanced at times, but really it is a part of the age in which it was made. It is an earlier society than our own, one based on authoritarian rule, patriarchy and deference, and held up by the threat of violence when needed.

While The Thousand Nights and One Night is certainly no intellectual or aesthetically satisfying book, the stories in it are often entertaining. If the tales start to get repetitive in places, then it will be sure to switch to a new style of stories soon. As a result there is much that is fresh and pleasing to the senses in the book.

[BeesReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this - another 3 volumes to go! ETA September 2020. (Not my only reading.)
This translation is a direct English translation (Mathers) of a French translation (Mardrus) which was direct from the Arabic.

This is most definitely NOT The Arabian Nights as you read them as a child!
Lots of sex, violence and gluttony (and drugs and alcohol).

Bear in mind that these works originated around 1200 years ago. While (as pointed out in a review further down) racism has been 'treated tactfully', it may still be too much for modern eyes.

This translation is noted elsewhere as being more true to the original than the Burton translation which apparently added more lurid details.

An interesting thing is that despite the general medieval eastern treatment of women (the words 'slave' and 'wife' seem to be somewhat interchangeable), women are also allowed to be educated, scholarly, give advice (even unto Kings) and for that advice to be taken.

[Nate Ahern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fat book, fun book, nuts.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've wanted to read the full version of One Thousand and One Nights / Arabian Nights for a long time. Like everyone else, I'd read the popular stories from it, like Alibaba and Alauddin and Sindbad, and was familiar with the main story of King Shahryar and Scheherazade. I'd read a Tamil translation of the book when I was a kid. It ran into multiple volumes, but I'm not sure whether it was a full translation or a selection of stories.

Full translations of the book were hard to find. I found this one at the bookshop during my student days. I was excited to discover that it was a complete translation. It was very expensive for me at that time. I was living in the college hostel at that time, and this book cost me a whole month's mess bill. But I couldn't resist. It was a collector's edition with beautiful cover art with a slipcase and all, and so I got it. I felt very guilty about it later, of course. It was the most expensive book that I'd bought at that point. I tried reading it a couple of times and once I passed a hundred pages, I think. But the book was too big and I got distracted by other things. But recently, after strengthening my reading muscles by reading successive chunksters, I thought it was time to give this book another shot. I picked it up and I was surprised that the pages flew, and I zipped through and finished the first volume today.

The first thing about the book is that it is a L2 translation. That is it was first translated from the original Arabic to French by J.C.Mardrus and then from French to English by Powys Mathers. I've rarely read an L2 translation in English.

After reading this first part, two things come to the top of my mind. The first is this. The book has much explicit content. So, it is definitely not a children's book. It is a book written for mature readers. The second thing is this. This book was written during ancient times. So if we look at it from our current 21st century values perspective, it will be hard to read. The only way to read this book is to suspend our 21st century value system in our minds, put ourselves inside the minds of those ancients, and read the book. Then this book is rewarding and entertaining.

I was expecting to see a lot of magic in the book, with djinns and magicians making regular appearances. Djinns do come in many stories at the beginning of the book, but after that the book is mostly about people. Towards the end there are even war scenes and war strategies which are described in detail. All this was very surprising for me. The story-within-a-story structure was very fascinating, and sometimes I got lost in the middle of it and it was hard to keep up, but it was also fun, like losing yourself inside a maze and trying to find your way out. The mythical bird Rukh, which looks like a huge eagle, makes its appearance in one of the stories and I was very excited to read that.

Which are some of my favourite stories from the book? It is hard to tell, as there were too many stories, and sometimes it was hard to tell them apart, because of the structure of the book. A couple of my favourite scenes were these. In one scene, a mother recognizes her son by the taste of the pomegranate dessert he made, because she taught him how to make it. It was a beautiful, moving scene. There are beautiful descriptions of exquisite desserts and delicious sweets in the book which makes us want to try them. When I read this sentence – "He filled the fairest of his porcelain bowls with his conserve of sugared pomegranate, amended with almonds and delicately perfumed" – I could almost see it in front of my eyes, and smell its delicious fragrance.

The second beautiful scene that I loved in the book is when the Khalifa of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid goes in disguise to his own garden because all the lights there are decked up, and he discovers a young man and woman there, and he talks to them, and cooks food for them, and becomes friends with them and helps them, and all the while they think that he is a poor fisherman. It is a beautiful story. Harun al-Rashid is a recurring character in the book and he is one of my favourite characters.

Most of the stories in the book have a happy ending, but in some of them, bad things happen to good people, and the last story in this part has a sad ending. When this story ends, Scheherazade's sister Dunyazad starts crying.

I enjoyed reading this first part of One Thousand and One Nights. I'm glad I read it. It has three more parts. Hoping to start the second part soon.

Have you read 'One Thousand and One Nights'? What do you think about it? Which translation did you read?

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A translation of the famous collection of stories. I was amazed at how bawdy some of them are.

[Tony Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was a slog. The problem with these stories is that they have a strictly limited number of elements to work with, which they just recycle over and over and over again. Wazirs. Kings. Royal lovers. Rose-scented sherbet. The first time someone does a king a favour and is gifted with 'a robe of high office', you nod approvingly at this interesting cultural insight from long ago. The two-hundred-and-seventy-fifth time it happens, you've kind of lost interest.

The lack of magic doesn't help. Some of the earlier stories in the collection - the older ones, I suspect - have jinns and talking fish and all sorts of fantastical goings-on, and I really enjoyed those, but the vast bulk aren't supernatural at all, which further limits the variety and possibilities.

And then of course there's the endless sexism. Again, I started off taking this my stride, accepting that we shouldn't judge centuries-old oriental fiction by the mores of today. But by the time you get to the thirtieth or fortieth lasciviously described virgin, it's just a bit depressing.

I think it's partly my fault for trying to read too many of these stories at one time. I seem to recall enjoying them much more years ago, when I used to just dip into these books at random. Maybe all the good stories are in volumes II - IV.

I shall still read the other three, but much, much more gradually. Over the next 30 years, maybe.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine collection of classic stories.

No one ever mentions how racist it is though. I'm not sure whether the original Arabic versions are racist or if it's the French translators from Arabic who are racist or the English translators from the French translations who are racist.

In actual fact I'm reading a book that is two translations of very different languages away from the original Arabic so how can I possibly say that I have read these stories accurately?

This is most perturbing.

Let's just assume that all versions are equally racist and tread carefully when explaining the meanings of the stories to people we know and love.

[SJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read several versions of the Thousand Nights and One Night, starting with the extremely opaque OG Burton translation (lots of "an thou not be sleepy"s and "alack and alas!"s). I gave up on that a number of times, yearning for a simpler translation that would just tell me the story of what happened, without the elaborate fuff or archaic language.

This is that translation. The best one out there I could find, bar none.

It is extremely readable, there are even some poems I didn't skip and found to be good (no mean feat considering the verse was translated first into French and then English) and, something I found surprising, includes some racy aspects that Burton excised, mostly when it includes mentions of homosexual romance or hanky-panky, which enhance the stories greatly in my view.

The cons - due to the nature of the stories and their context, this naturally contains historic attitudes that are painfully prejudiced, and I speak as someone not easily "triggered". Lots of stuff about how women are immoral, certain races are subhuman and ugly, lots of plot points to which the only rational response is "WTF". Some "morals" of the stories - men can have multiple wives and concubines but if a wife strays she deserves gruesome torture and/or death, you can do all sorts of horrible things but if you are a Believer and it is in your Destiny you will prosper, if you are not a Believer you deserve bad things to happen to you even if you do good things.

Yuck.

However, still fascinating, so long as you shrug off the yucky parts and read on, maybe taking frequent breaks. Some great fantasy stories in there, some very interesting insights into the culture and beliefs of those times. Also, for what it's worth, I've heard a theory that the frequent religious references were deliberately added so that the stories could be passed on without being outright banned, despite their many pagan aspects and probable pagan origins in ancient Persia - some food for thought.

[Óscar López · Rating 4 out of 5]

An undisputed classic of Middle Eastern fantasy, the Arabian Nights has inspired the imagination of readers and influenced countless writers for over a thousand years. An anthology of tales originating from various Eastern lands like India, Persia, Syria, Egypt and Iran, collected over centuries and framed under a single overarching story.

I was drawn to this particular edition, due to Neil Gaiman's personal endorsement. Translated from the original Arabic to French by Mardrus and further into English by Mathers, it is touted as one of the most complete and uncensored versions in existence. This is the first of a four-volume collection, and covers up to the 169th Night.

The text is full of Islamic references; practically every page mentions Allah and his Prophet. The stories span diverse genres, some containing explicit sexual themes, thus rendering it unsuitable for children.

I loved the descriptions of food and unimaginable riches, and the beauty of the protagonists. However, the recurring poems didn't quite strike a chord with me – I suspect a lot was lost in translation, but anyway I’m not a fan of poetry.

Now for the bad parts: the Kindle edition is riddled with typographical errors, and at times, incomplete text, leading to nonsensical passages – this is outrageous, given the price they charge for this edition. Furthermore, the text is an arduous read in the current era, marred by blatant racism, sexism, and anti-Christian sentiment. It unflinchingly showcases slavery, rape, incest, pedophilia, and more.

The book's dated aspects cast a long shadow over its merits, which is regrettable, for numerous stories within are delightful, imaginative, and simply fantastical. Their exotic cultural origin adds an alluring appeal. Despite the challenges, I plan to brave the remaining three volumes - I've yet to reach iconic tales such as "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", and "Sinbad the Sailor".

[Lamina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's wonderful to finally read some stories from the Islamic Golden Age. A lot of them, I find, are better written than Western stories from the same time.

The issue is that the stories get repetitive (and this is only volume 1 of 4) littered with period typical racism, sexism and the other -isms.

Tldr: some good bits but directed by Sam Levinson

3 more to go...

[Deets · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d gone up to page 411 of the 644 page book and have only gotten up to the 70th of the 1,001 nights. And there’re 3 more volumes of this. Can’t muster the motivation to continue. If I was the King I would have killed Shahrazad on the 3rd night for not getting straight to the point. Why prolong the torture until 1,001 nights? That’s nearly 3 years of ending a story on a cliff hanger. Every night. Masochist.

I was going to say that the people depicted in this book
are not very nice - the matter of fact racism, sense of entitlement of the elite class, sexual abuse, oppression, slavery - but hey, all of that’s going on even now.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on my phone at the gym over the course of many months. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night is a classic work of fable and lore, but I might have been better off reading it in more concentrated dose than I did. Since the basis of all the stories is that they are being told by Scheherazade in order to save her life, it makes sense that this book is basically a huge compilation of stories that just keep coming. Stories are stacked within stories like nesting dolls, so I had to turn back a few times (easier said than done in the ebook format on my phone).

Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, has married a ruler who (after finding his previous beloved wife was unfaithful) has sworn to marry a virgin each day, and behead her the following morning. Scheherazade decides that she will take on this challenge rather than let more of her countrywomen die at the hands of a cuckolded ruler. She tells him a story every night, but makes sure to leave him in suspense in the morning so that he will not kill her until the next day (because he wants to find out how the story ends, obvi). The first few tales are bookended in this way, but eventually it is just an anthology of eastern fables and folklore.

Since I grew up on fairy tales and the Andrew Lang fairy tales (which cover broad geography), the tales were mostly, but not entirely, new to me. They remain entertaining and exciting, although expect a deus ex machina (or jinn ex machina) every few tales at least. Because that's how fairy tales work.

[Helene · Rating 3 out of 5]

while the stories are interesting, I grew tired of the raping and pillaging aspect. People are 'given' to others, revenge brutal and often based on a lie. Women are objects to be desired and conquered.

the text is beautiful and the many poems within are as well. The transition from night to night is often clever.

it's a 4 volume set for anyone with the endurance.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to an Audible of this which basically is about the first third of the book. I didn't care much for the reader. Kevin Foley but I picked this version because I wanted the Richard F Burton translation. I enjoyed it but feel the best part is still to come. At some point I will continue with another version and get to Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sinbad and the rest.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually a translation of a translation. It went from Arabic to French to English and apparently Mardrus' French translation could be seen as an interpretation more than a translation. Also the Nights are a little formulaic so be warned.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been listening to this on audiobook but it's been incredibly time-consuming for its length in that respect. I'm giving up. I read a very abridged version years ago that is much more enjoyable than this mammoth tome but I do think that the stories are incredible.

[Merry Packard Gravett]

So, I didn't really give this much of a chance. I borrowed it and never got more than a page in, and I had to return it because I am moving soonish (that's my excuse).

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holding off on a review until I have read all four volumes. As I'm reading one night a day, it will take a couple more years.