Arabian Nights (Lang)
Andrew Lang, ed., 1898
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A collection of Middle Eastern tales told inside a frame story. The ruler Schahriar has taken to marrying a wife each day and having her put to death. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, volunteers to marry him and keeps him from killing her by telling a story each night and leaving it unfinished. Within her telling come the Merchant and the Genius, the Fisherman, the Three Calenders, the Seven Voyages of Sindbad, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and many more. This is Andrew Lang's selection for young readers, not the full set of nights.
Where it happens
Through time
- 750Indian and Persian tales are probably put into Arabic around the early eighth century as Alf Layla.1
- 900In Iraq, Arab stories including Harun al-Rashid tales are added to the core.1
- 1250A further layer of stories is added in Syria and Egypt from the thirteenth century.1
- 1706The first English edition begins appearing, running to 1721.1
- 1844Andrew Lang, compiler of this edition, is born.3
Who is in it, and behind it
Antoine Galland translator
French translator who added Aladdin and Ali Baba to the collection.1
Harun al-Rashid subject
Caliph of ninth-century Baghdad (died 809) who figures in a cycle of the tales.1
Sindbad the Sailor character
Hero of seven voyages told in the collection.2
Dinarzade character
Scheherazade's younger sister.2
What it is about
Stories delay execution
Scheherazade tells tales to stay alive, a device with roots in earlier Indian frame stories.1
A book with no fixed text
The Nights has no canonical order or number of tales, and editions differ.1
Tales nested in tales
Some stories are framed within other tales while others are self-contained.1
In its own words
daughters, of whom the elder was called Scheherazade, and the younger Dinarzade. Dinarzade had no particular gifts to distinguish her from other girls, but her sister was clever and courageous in the highest degree
Sindbad had adventures which perhaps came out of the Odyssey of Homer; in fact, all the East had contributed its wonders, and sent them to Europe in one parcel
he saw an enormous genius, white with rage, coming towards him, with a scimitar in his hand. "Arise," he cried in a terrible voice, "and let me kill you as you have killed my son
Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in 786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real person of the great family of the Barmecides
returned next day to hear the story of the seventh voyage, Sindbad thus began.
who was so beautiful that he was named Camaralzaman, or "Moon of the Century." Prince Camaralzaman was brought up with extreme care by an excellent governor and all the cleverest teachers, and he did such credit to them that when he was grown up, a more charming and accomplished young man was not to
The shape of the book
36 chapters, 111,109 words. Point at a bar.
How it came to be here
No single canonical text of the Nights exists. Scholars trace its core to Indian and Persian tales put into Arabic perhaps in the early eighth century, with Arab stories and Harun al-Rashid tales added in Iraq by the ninth or tenth century, and more layers from Syria and Egypt from the thirteenth. The first English edition dates from about 1706 to 1721. Aladdin and Ali Baba were added by the French translator Antoine Galland and are not in the original Arabic versions. Andrew Lang (1844 to 1912), a Scottish writer, made this edition, and the site carries it.
Free to read elsewhere
- Project Gutenberg ebook #128
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Sources
- One Thousand and One Nights (Wikipedia)
- The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang (Project Gutenberg)
- Andrew Lang (Wikipedia)
Text: PG 128. US public domain (Project Gutenberg licence).