The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights (Modern Library Classics)

Product Description

Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance,
The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Shahrazad always withheld the ending: A thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever.

This volume reproduces the 1932 Modern Library edition, for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton’s multivolume translation, and includes Burton’s extensive and acclaimed explanatory notes. These tales, including Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, have entered into the popular imagination, demonstrating that Shahrazad’s spell remains unbroken.

Review

“[A] book…that captivates in childhood, and still delights in age.”

From the Inside Flap

Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance,
The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Shahrazad always withheld the ending: A thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever.

This volume reproduces the 1932 Modern Library edition, for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton’s multivolume translation, and includes Burton’s extensive and acclaimed explanatory notes. These tales, including Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, have entered into the popular imagination, demonstrating that Shahrazad’s spell remains unbroken.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance, The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Shahrazad always withheld the ending: A thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever.
This volume reproduces the 1932 Modern Library edition, for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton’s multivolume translation, and includes Burton’s extensive and acclaimed explanatory notes. These tales, including Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, have entered into the popular imagination, demonstrating that Shahrazad’s spell remains unbroken.
“From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

A. S. Byatt is the author of
The Biographer’s Tale,
Elementals, and the Booker Prize winning novel
Possession, among other books. She lives in London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

alf laylah wa laylah.

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionating, the Compassionate!

praise be to Allah, the beneficient king, the creator of the universe, lord of the three worlds, who set up the firmament without pillars in its stead, and who stretched out the earth even as a bed, and grace, and prayer, blessing be upon our Lord Mohammed, lord of apostolic men, and upon his family and companion-train, prayer and blessings enduring and grace which unto the day of doom shall remain, amen! ‘o thou of the three worlds sovereign!

And afterwards. Verily the works and words of those gone before us have become instances and examples to men of our modern day, that folk may view what admonishing chances befel other folk and may therefrom take warning; and that they may peruse the annals of antique peoples and all that hath betided them, and be thereby ruled and restrained: Praise, therefore, be to Him who hath made