by Paul Nurse
The best sourcebook for all things Nights is The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia in two volumes, published in 2004 and easily something to get lost in. With many short articles on the work by various researchers and pundits, its crowning glory is the hundreds of short commentaries on the individual stories making up the different manuscripts and editions—a prime example of creating order out of something that at times appears the very essence of literary chaos.
Many other works provide material or important information. Biographies of Galland (all, alas, in French) and other translators such as Richard Francis Burton and John Payne contain information on how their translations came to be made, while quarrying among some of the textural studies of the Nights can provide valuable and unexpected insights. Both Peter L. Carracciolo’s (ed.) The Arabian Nights in English Literature (1988) and Daniel Beaumont’s Slave of Desire: Sex, Love, and Death in The 1001 Nights (2002) contain fine introductions on the Nights and its history along with their respective titular thematic concerns, while Eva Sallis’s Scheherazade Through the Looking Glass (1999) examines the concept of changefulness as it applies to the Nights’ history and cultural perspective in both the Middle East and the West. A more recent work, The Arabian Nights Reader (ed. Ulrich Marzolph), is a collection of essays examining various aspects of the work, and is also very worthwhile.
The problem with recommending actual editions of the Nights is exactly the reverse: there aren’t too few; there are too many. In English, the Richard Burton edition remained the longest and most famous unexpurgated version for 120 years until Malcolm Lyons’s marvellous new translation appeared to acclaim in 2008. Burton remains valuable, but be warned: the great explorer’s eccentric style and Victorian prejudices take some getting use to. That said, he captures the earthy romance of the Nights as perhaps no other English writer has before or since. The John Payne version that preceded Burton’s is written in a more graceful style, and Payne has an ear for poetry that Burton frankly doesn’t possess, but for all that it lacks the bawdy virility of “Ruffian Dick” Burton’s Arabian Nights. If Burton proves too much, the reader can do no better in English than Malcolm Lyons.
One of the most readable abridged editions to appear in English is N.J. Dawood’s Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Dawood, most famous for his English translation of the Koran, cleverly alternates short and long stories. His edition, first published by Penguin Books in 1954 as-—playfully—number 1001 in their catalogue, has seen at least twenty editions and is perhaps the easiest-to-digest English version of a selection of Nights stories for general readers. Of contemporary works, Husain Haddawy’s English translation of Mahdi’s Alf Laila wa Laila is graceful and pleasingly accurate; his sequel of orphan stories, Arabian Nights II, is also eminently worthwhile.
Films to See
As stated earlier, most “Arabian Nights” films are barely worth viewers’ time and trouble, unless they’re looking for camp. But as with books on the Nights, there are a handful of motion pictures that stand out as intelligent or charming renditions of actual stories or tales inspired by the work. All are available in various video formats.
Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 Adventures of Prince Achmed is for both animation buffs as well as Arabian Nights’ aficionados, and after some eighty-plus years still astounds by its technique of moving silhouette cut-outs. Both the Douglas Fairbanks silent The Thief of Bagdad and the 1940 Alexander Korda remake can be recommended to children and adults alike, and despite the genie-like advances in special effects since their respective releases, both versions retain a charm and magic lacking in many of today’s fantasy films. On the other hand, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Flower of the Arabian Nights (a.k.a. Arabian Nights) can definitely not be recommended to children or sensitive adults, but all others are likely to be mesmerized by the great director’s evocation of the dreamy, erotic qualities found in the original Alf Laila wa Laila. Difficult to find in an unedited version, it is still well worth the discriminating cineaste’s effort.
I must confess to one guilty pleasure. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad [sic] (1974) remains among the juvenile sub- Nights genre of the Sindbad adventure film, but with a fine score by Miklos Roza, brilliant stop-motion effects by the legendary Ray Harryhausen and plenty of action and romance, it sneaks into the viewer’s affections quite effectively. As an added bonus, it is also one of the few Nights films—and the only Sindbad picture—where the lead actor (John Philip Law) actually bothers speaking with an Arabian accent.
Websites
The emergence of the wired world has transformed the modern age of information almost beyond recognition. If general books on the Nights for mainstream readers are as rare as roc’s eggs, the internet boasts a number of sites devoted either entirely or partly to the work, although the open nature of the web and the lack of vetting makes it hard to differentiate among levels of accuracy. For those wanting to read the various “adult” versions of the Nights in English, the Arabian Nights Project at www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.htm offers not only the complete text to Sir Richard Burton’s entire sixteen volumes but also the whole of the John Payne translation, including Payne’s supplementary stories, and even the Jonathan Scott and Andrew Lang abridged editions. Wikipedia has a long-standing and quite fine article on the Nights, while Michael Lundell’s blog at http://journalofthenights.blogspot.com is at once informative and wide-ranging. These sites deserve unqualified support and frequent visitation from anyone with even the slightest interest in this lovely, fascinating book.
Select Bibliography
Books
Ali, Muhsin Jassim. Scheherazade in England: A Study in Nineteenth-Century English Criticism of the Arabian Nights. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1981.
Beaumont, Daniel. Slave of Desire: Sex, Love and Death in The 1001 Nights. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 2002.
Beckford, William. Vathek. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Bernstein, Matthew, and Studler, Gaylyn (ed). Visions of the East: Orientalism on Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
Borges, Jorge Luis. Seven Nights. Translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger. New York: New Directions Pub. Corp., 1984.
Brodie, Fawn M. The Devil Drives. New York: W.W. Norton, 1967.
Burton, Lady Isabel. Life of Sir Richard F. Burton. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1893.
Burton, Sir Richard Francis. First Footsteps in East Africa. 2 vols. London: Tylston and Edwards, 1894. First published 1856.
——. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. 10 vols. Benares (London): Printed for the Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares, 1885–86.
——. Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. 6 vols. Benares (London): Printed for the Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares, 1886–88.
——. Vikram and the Vampire. London: Tylston and Edwards, 1893. First published 1870.
Byron, Lord (George Gordon). Works of Lord Byron. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994.
——. Don Juan. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1996. First published 1821.
Caracciolo, Peter L. (ed.). The Arabian Nights in English Literature. London: Macmillan, 1988.
Casada, James A. Sir Richard F. Burton: A Bibliographical Study. London: Mansell, 1990.
Chew, Samuel C. The Crescent and the Rose: Islam and England during the Renaissance. New York: Octagon Books, 1974.
Clot, Andre. Harun al-Rashid and the World of the Thousand and One Nights. Translated from the French by John Howe. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1989.
Conant, Martha Pike. The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1908.
Dawood, N.J. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1953.
D’Herbelot de Molainville, Barthelemy. Bibliothèque orientale. Paris: Compagnie d
es libraries, 1697.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories. London: Dent, 1965.
Djebar, Assia. A Sister to Scheherazade. Trans. Dorothy S. Blain. London: Quartet, 1987. First published in Paris, 1987, as L’Ombre sultane.
Duffy, Maureen. The Erotic World of Faery. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972.
Galland, Antoine. Les mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français. 9 vols. Paris: Chez le normant, 1806.
——. Journal d’Antoine Galland pendant son séjour à Constantinople, 1672–1673, ed. Charles Schefer. 2 vols. Paris: Charles Schefer, 1881.
——. Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Gerhardt, Mia I. The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights. London: E.J. Brill, 1963.
Ghazoul, Ferial J. Nocturnal Poetics: The “Arabian Nights” in Comparative Context. Cairo: American University in Cairo, 1996.
Gibbon, Edward. Memoirs of My Life. London: Nelson, 1966.
Goldsmith, Oliver. Citizen of the World. London: J. Newbery, 1762.
Haddawy, Husain. The Arabian Nights. Based on the text by Muhsin Mahdi. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.
——. The Arabian Nights 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
Halim, Muhammed Abd al-. Antoine Galland, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris: A.G. Nizet, 1964.
——. Correspondence d’Antoine Galland: edition critique et commentée. Paris: n.p., 1964.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Rinehart, 1961. First published 1850.
Hentsch, Thierry. Imagining the Middle East. Trans. Fred A. Reed. New York: Black Rose Books, 1992.
Heron, Robert. Arabian Nights: The Continuation. 3 vols. London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1792.
Hoang, Lethuy. Les mille et une nuits: à travers l’infini des espaces et des temps: le conteur Galland, le conte et son public. New York: P. Lang, 2001.
Hole, Richard. Remarks on the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. London: T. Cadell, Jr., and W. Davies, 1797.
Hovannisian, Richard G., and Sabagh, Georges (ed.). The Thousand and One Nights in Arabic Literature and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Hyam, Ronald. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
Irwin, Robert. The Arabian Nightmare. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Viking, 1982.
——. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Tauris Parke, 2004. First published Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 1994.
Kabbani, Rana. Europe’s Myths of Orient. London: Macmillan, 1985.
Kennedy, Dane. The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the Victorian World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Lane, Edward William. The Book of the Thousand and One Nights. 3 vols. London: Charles Knight and Co., 1839–41.
——. An Account of the Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians. London: Ward, Lock and Co., 1842.
Layard, Henry Austen. Nineveh and Its Remains. 2 vols. New York: George P. Putnam, 1849.
Lovell, Mary. A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.
Mackenzie, John M. Orientalism: History, Theory, and the Arts. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995.
Macnaghten, Sir William Hay (ed.). Arabian Nights. Arabic text. 4 vols. Calcutta: n.p., 1839-42.
Mahdi, Muhsin. The Thousand and One Nights (Alf Laila wa Laila) from the Earliest Known Sources. Arabic text. Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1984.
——. The Thousand and One Nights. New York: E.J. Brill, 1995.
Malouf, Amin. Balthasar’s Odyssey. Trans. Barbara Bray. London: Vintage, 2002.
Marchand, Leslie. Byron. London: John Murray, 1971.
Mardrus, Joseph-Charles. Arabian Nights. 4 vols. Trans. Edward Powys Mathers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953. First published in French, 1899–1904.
Marzolph, Ulrich, and van Leeuwen, Richard (ed.). The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
Masudi, al-. Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems. London: Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund, 1841.
May, Georges. Les mille et une nuits d’Antoine Galland. Paris: PUF, 1986.
Montesquieu, Charles Louis, Baron de. Persian Letters. New York: Penguin Books, 1973. First published in French, 1721.
Naddaff, Sandra. Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the Aesthetics of Repetition in the 1001 Nights. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991.
Nadim, Ibn al-. The Fihirst of al-Nadim. Trans. Bayard Dodge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Oueijin, Naji B. The Progress of an Image: The East in English Literature. New York: P. Lang, 1996.
Payne, John. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. 9 vols. London: Printed for the Villon Society, 1882–84.
——. Tales from the Arabic. London: Printed for the Villon Society, 1884.
——. Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp; Zein ul Asnan and the King of the Jinn…. London: Printed for the Villon Society, 1889.
Pinault, David. Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights. New York: E.J. Brill, 1992.
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Potocki, Jan. The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Trans. Ian Maclean. London: Penguin Books, 1996.
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——. The Satanic Verses. London: Viking, 1988.
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Sallis, Eva. Scheherazade Through the Looking Glass: The Metamorphoses of the Thousand and One Nights. Richmond: Curzon, 1999.
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——. The Oriental Renaissance. Trans. Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinking. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. First published in French, 1950.
Sebbar, Leila. Sherazade: 17 ans, brune, frisée, les yeux verts: roman. Paris: Stock, 1982.
Shaftesbury, Earl of (Anthony Ashley-Cooper). Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. 2 vols., ed. John M. Robinson. Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1963.
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Symons, Arthur. Dramatis Personae. London: Bobbs-Merrill, 1923.
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Voltaire. Zadig, and Other Tales. Trans. Robert Bruce Boswell. London: G. Bell, 1910.
Weber, Henry (ed.). Tales of the East. 3 vols. Edinburgh: James Ballantyne & Co., 1812.
Wilson, Jeremy. Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence. London: Heinemann, 1989.
Wright, Thomas. Life of John Payne. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1919.
——. Life of Sir Richard Burton. 2 vols. New York: Burt Franklin, 1968. First published in London, 1906.
Young, G.M. Gibbon. London: P. Davies, 1932.
Zipes, Jack. The Arabian Nights. New York: Signet Classic, 1991.
Articles and Essays
Abbot, Nabia. “A Ninth-Century Fragment of the ‘Thousand Nights’ New Light on the Early History of The Arabian Nights,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies VIII, no. 3 (July 1949), 129–64.
Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Translators of The Thousand and one Nights,” in Borges: A Reader, ed. E.R. Monegal and A. Reid. New York: Dutton, 1981, 73–86.
Byatt, A.S. “Narrate or Die,” The New
York Times Magazine, April 18, 1999, Section 6, 104–7.
Greer, Margaret. “Who’s Telling This Story Anyway? Framing Tales East and West: Panchatantra to Boccaccio to Zayas.” Address to the Mid-American Conference on Spanish Literature. Lawrence, KS: 1994.
Hanford, James B. “Open Sesame: Notes on the Arabian Nights in England,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 26 (Autumn 1964), 46–56.
——. “The Arabian Nights: An Early Copy of the French Translation,” Princeton University Library Chronicle XXIX, no. 5 (Spring 1968), 219–20.
Kennedy, Dane. “’Captain Burton’s Oriental Muck Heap’: The Book of the Thousand Nights and the Uses of Orientalism,” Journal of British Studies 39, no. 3 (2000), 317–39.
MacDonald, Duncan Black, “Alf Laila Wa-Laila,” The Encyclopedia of Islam, Supplement I (n.d.), 17–21.
——. “On Translating the Arabian Nights,” The Nation 71 (August 30 and September 6, 1900), 167–68, 185–86.
Oueijin, Naji B. “Orientalism: The Romantics’ Added Dimension or, Edward Said Refuted,” in Romanticism in its Modern Aspects: Review of National Literatures and World Report, ed. Virgil Nemoianu. Wilmington: Council on National Literatures, 1997, 37–50.
Toler, Pamela D. “The Hakawati of Paris,” Saudi Aramco World (January–February 2008), 34–39.
Acknowledgments
Any book, particularly a first book, is the product of a lengthy collaboration among writer, editor and publisher. With this work, concerning an especially complex subject, the task of writing ran parallel with the process of rediscovering the Nights as an absorbing work of great power and eloquence. While I’m not sorry to have finished it, I will admit to feeling saddened to be leaving it.
