The Arabian Nights (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

By Muhsin J. al-Musawi

The Arabian Nights is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.   Once upon a time, the name Baghdad conjured up visions of the most magical, romantic city on earth, where flying carpets carried noble thieves off on wonderful adventures, and vicious viziers and beautiful princesses mingled with wily peasants and powerful genies. This is the world of the Arabian Nights, a magnificent collection of ancient tales from Arabia, India, and Persia.
 
The tales—often stories within stories—are told by the sultana Scheherazade, who relates them as entertainments for her jealous and murderous husband, hoping to keep him amused and herself alive. In addition to the more fantastic tales which have appeared in countless bowdlerized editions for children and have been popularized by an entire genre of Hollywood films, this collection includes far more complex, meaningful, and erotic stories that deal with a wide range of moral, social, and political issues.
 
Though early Islamic critics condemned the tales’ “vulgarity” and worldliness, the West has admired their robust, bawdy humor and endless inventiveness since the first translations appeared in Europe in the eighteenth century. Today these stories stand alongside the fables of Aesop, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, and the folklore of Hans Christian Andersen as some of the Western literary tradition’s most-quoted touchstones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
• Release date: Jun 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411431782

Muhsin J. al-Musawi

Muhsin J. al-Musawi is professor of classical and modern Arabic literature, and comparative and cultural studies at Columbia University. He is the author of many books in English and Arabic, including The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015).

Reviews for The Arabian Nights (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Doesn't contain all the known Arabian fairy tales, if such a thing is possible. Most notable exception is Ali Baba and the fourty thieves. This edition is based on one of the early french compilations by Antoine Gallard, and translated inot English by Andrew Lang. In the process Gallard dropped the poetry and "a great deal of what the Arabian authors thought funny, though it seems wearisome to us". I'm not sure it would have been that dull actually. Then Lang cut some more out "shortened here and there, and omissions are made of pieces only suitable fro Arabs and old gentlemen" Ie bowdlerised. Which is also a shame and very notable on some stories. The famous opening remains in place with the tale of Scheherazade beguiling her Sultan with stories to prevent his murdering of a new wife each morning. From here the collection rapidly fragments into new stories sometimes intertwinned as characters in one story narrate their adventures in the form of a new story. Once this loop fails to close, utterly abandoning the reader. Scheherazade is quickly forgotten and never reappears. Indeed only Sinbad lasts fro more than a tale or two, and he is limited to his famous seven exploits. The stories themselves are all very similar. A Prince or princess or merchant suffers a hardship, bemoans their fate, meets a magical being, and regains a rich life full of treasure. Strangely teh singular form of genii is given as genius throughout which is a bit confusing. Likewise the difference between the various sorts of beings and human castes is never explained, but expected to be known to the reader. Kings seem to be a kind on minor noble much below the tank of Sultan or Caliph which seems odd to western traditions. Notably different from western Fairy Tales in setting, if not in morals, it makes interesting reading to start with, but quickly becomes overly similar. I'm glad not all 1001 nights are reproduced here.

[lcoale1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't know what I was getting into when I started reading this book. I had heard a few references to the Arabian Nights, mainly that it was a highly scandalous book. That's it. So, of course, I had to read it. Arabian Nights is a book of Arabian fairy tales. There's genii (singular = genius. that'll save you confusion later) in basically every story. But, when I started reading, I couldn't stop. Arabian fairy tales are nothing like those of the West [despite what the preface says]. They're awesome! I would definitely recommend this book.

[lkernagh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My other half has been hounding me for sometime now to read the One Thousand and One Nights tales that were such a favorite of his when he was a child. Given how big a tome the complete (if there is such a thing) collection of stories is, I compromised and decided to read the shorter collection of 26 stories compiled by Andrew Lang. 24 of the stories are genuine Middle Eastern folk tales from the Islamic Golden Age (the 8th to 12 centuries) with almost all of them focused on the Caliphate era when the Islamic state was led by a caliph, a religious and political leader. The remaining two stories in this collection, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, are said to be stories that were added to the larger collection of Arabian tales by Antoine Galland and other European translators in the early 18th century.I enjoyed the stories for the Middle Eastern atmosphere and flavor but over time found the stories, even though richly told with diverse characters and situations, started to have a 'same old, same old' feel to them. Even today, these are great stories of morals, values and beliefs gone astray and the result of that straying from the set path. I found it amusing how the great Caliph can borrow a peasant's clothes and in the blink of an eye, even his own grand vizir can no longer recognize him - those must be magic clothes! - and how some of the characters are transformed into persons of brilliant beauty because they took a bath.... removing a month of grime probably would have that effect, although there is no indication that routine bathing was not an established habit. The violence was slightly perturbing. It is amazing how what we might today consider lesser transgressions of mischief brought about the quick execution of the miscreants and just how gullible some of the well-to-do Sultans, Princes, etc were in the stories. The Arabian Nights Entertainments is a good title for the collection. For the most part, the stories were very entertaining. I particularly liked how the stories have a nice gender balance and the women weren't just shadow figures in the stories. Some were smarter than the men and saved the day (so to speak) while others were powerful magicians (both good and evil). While we think that most fables and fairy tales are stories for adults to read to their children, I was intrigued to learn that these Arabian Nights tales were created for and told to an adult audience by people whose profession at the time was to amuse men and women by telling tales. I can see how an adult would view these stories differently than a child would, and gain deeper meaning from them. If you have never read the stories of the Arabian Nights before, Lang's smaller collection may be a good place to start before attempting to tackle one of the larger, more complete collections of stories such as Richard Burton's English version or Antoine Galland's French version.

[david.loeff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This edition of the Arabian Nights contains only the most popular stories and none of the adult content that Sir Richard Francis Burton included in his multi-volume translation.

However, this translation is suitable for children while Burton's translation is not. Although Andrew Lang's language can seem somewhat archaic at times, it is nowhere near as archaic as Burton's.