The Arabian Nights (New Deluxe Edition)

Muhsin Mahdi

May 2008 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

Now as sumptuously packaged as they are critically acclaimed—a new deluxe trade paperback edition of the beloved stories. The stories of The Arabian Nights (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories) are famously told by the Princess Shahrazad, under the threat of death should the king lose interest in her tale. Collected over the centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from adventure fantasies, vivacious erotica, and animal fables, to pointed Sufi tales, these stories provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory. No one knows exactly when a given story originated, and many circulated orally for centuries before being written down; but in the process of telling and retelling, they were modified to reflect the general life and customs of the Arab society that adapted them—a distinctive synthesis that marks the cultural and artistic history of Islam.

This translation is of the complete text of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and considered to be the most authentic.

Ratings and reviews

I've always loved the stories in the thousand and one nights, when I've first read them in the Chinese translation as a little boy. All the cultural influences came out of these tales, Ali Bubba and 40 thieves, Sinbad's adventures, djin of the lamp, and most of all, the story telling style of Shahrazad. Though my first encounter with stories of the Arabian nights have a G rating, more of the Disney than Q. Tarantino's version, which is what this current one I'm reading is. Really, it was watching the 1993 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula by Frances Capola that I first discovered that there is an adult version of a 1001 nights(there is a Victorian version of the book with the pictures). Just the beginning of the story itself is full of sexual encounters, strange ones too, you add infidelities and violence, you have a hit adult drama. Rediscovered this version of the Arabian night was just… I really don't have any words to describe the feeling, that's just leave it at that.

Excellent 👏👏👍👌😊

About the author

Husain Haddawy was born and grew up in Baghdad, taught English and comparative literature at various American universities, wrote art criticism, and is now living in retirement in Thailand.