Folklore & Fairytales discussion

Hey Everyone,

I was wondering if you've read some of the stories of Thousand and One Nights? And if so, censored or uncensored versions? How did you come across them?

In my experience many libraries/bookshop simply put Thousand and One Nights with the children's books, probably automatically since they're fairy tales, even though the uncensored versions are really not suited for kids, haha.
I'm interested to see if this happens anywhere else, or that my local bookstore are just kind of thick :D.

I have two volumes of Thousand and One Nights, uncensored in French. I've read them off and on for years and never get tired of them.

Yes, I'm thinking of reading my copy again (it's illustrated!) However the first time I read it, I was definitely too young which has made me a bit apprehensive, I guess.

It is really almost impossible to obtain unabridged versions of the Arabian Nights that are not woefully expensive. Even the Penguin Classics version is but a taste of the original (which is multi volume). Also, there is the famous rendition by Richard Burton, but there is also a mutli volume French version that predates Burton by more than a century.

Gundula wrote: "It is really almost impossible to obtain unabridged versions of the Arabian Nights that are not woefully expensive. Even the Penguin Classics version is but a taste of the original (which is multi..."

I wish that you would use the add book feature so that there are links to ghese different versions. I would like to read the original ones in English. Please tell me which version I should get.

Cosmic wrote: "Gundula wrote: "It is really almost impossible to obtain unabridged versions of the Arabian Nights that are not woefully expensive. Even the Penguin Classics version is but a taste of the original..."

This might be a relatively complete version of the French version of the Arabian Nights (might be, as I have not found the 1745 version my partner has in the GR database, Contes des mille et une nuits (Intégrale Volumes 1 à 9)). It is in French, and looks like it is nine volumes.

As for the Richard Burton translation, I have not found the multi volume (and old) series comissioned by the Burton Club in the GR database.

I think you might consider the following, although I have no idea how complete it is:

The Arabian Nights (also peruse the other editions listed, there are versions by Routledge Press, both as paper and as e-books that look quite promising and long enough to perhpas be complete).

There are a lot of variants in A Thousand and One Nights because there are a lot of manuscripts that do not agree.

And they don't include many of the ones we most think of as "Arabian Nights" because those are French tales using the elements.