One Thousand and One Nights
One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ ʾAlf Laylah wa-Laylah)[1] is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition (c. 1706–1721), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.[2]
For other uses, see One Thousand and One Nights (disambiguation), 1001 Nights (disambiguation), and Arabian Nights (disambiguation).
The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa. Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature.[3] Most tales, however, were originally folk stories from the Abbasid and Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hezār Afsān (Persian: هزار افسان, lit. 'A Thousand Tales'), which in turn may be translations of older Indian texts.[4]
Common to all the editions of the Nights is the framing device of the story of the ruler Shahryar being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade, with one tale told over each night of storytelling. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while some are self-contained. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights of storytelling, while others include 1001 or more. The bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion. Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains, although some are longer.
Some of the stories commonly associated with the Arabian Nights—particularly "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"—were not part of the collection in the original Arabic versions, but were instead added to the collection by French translator Antoine Galland after he heard them from Syrian writer Hanna Diyab during the latter's visit to Paris.[5][6][7] Other stories, such as "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", had an independent existence before being added to the collection.
The Sultan
One Thousand and One Nights book.
The fifth voyage of Sindbad
Frank Brangwyn, Story of Abon-Hassan the Wag ("He found himself upon the royal couch"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of the Merchant ("Sheherezade telling the stories"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of Ansal-Wajooodaud, Rose-in-Bloom ("The daughter of a Visier sat at a lattice window"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of Gulnare ("The merchant uncovered her face"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of Beder Basim ("Whereupon it became eared corn"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of Abdalla ("Abdalla of the sea sat in the water, near the shore"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of Mahomed Ali ("He sat his boat afloat with them"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
Frank Brangwyn, Story of the City of Brass ("They ceased not to ascend by that ladder"), 1895–96, watercolour and tempera on millboard
