And yes, I know it’s really The Thousand Nights and the One Night. Seriously, though, it’s come up several times independently in my life in the last couple weeks, so which version should I look into reading? The old Richard Burton translation? Some more recent work? Is the whole thing just far too long for my attention span, and I should look for an abridged version? Advise me!
I am gradually working my way through
The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night
J.C Madrus (Editor), E.P Mathers (Editor)
Publisher: Routledge; New edition edition (December 31, 1990)
It is an English translation of a French translation, but I am enjoying it. It’s rather long, four volumes, but it is an uncensored version.
It has all of the sex, violence, racism, sexism, anti-semitism, and bathroom jokes left in.
I like the Burton translation myself (I have the complete set). Purists hate it, but he doesn’t censor it (surprising or a Victorian era writer) , and his footnotes alone (which frequently take up more space on the page than the “clear” text – and in smaller print, too!) are worth the reading. They give invaluable background information on the culture that you won’t find in other editions.
I also have the Penguin edition of “Tales from the Arabian Nights”, the forward of which takes Burton to task for his odd translation. It’s quite readable, but incomplete, of course (I also have this one as an audiobook, and I love it because the two narrators they got are obviously of Middle Eastern extraction, and read it with accents that seem very natural and appropriate. There’s a man and a woman).
I have seen recent complete translations of the Nights, but I’m not familiar with them, and can’t say whether I’d recommend them over Burton or any other.
This. I bought a complete set back in the 80s when it was reissued by The Burton Society. Buy it for the commentary. The translation is gravy.
Definitely the Burton.
He wasn’t your stereotypical Victorian. The kind of guy who disguises himself as a Muslim of Mid-East extraction, in order to go to Mecca., is way cool.
A long time ago there was a mini-series Search for the Nile, which of course had Burton as one of the two major characters. It came down on his side, rather than Speke’s, when it came to who really “discovered” the source of the Nile river.