Judge Dee

Judge Dee's Mystery (2024)

It's hard to imagine any TV show being much more enjoyable than the latest Chinese adaptation of Robert van Gulik's "Judge Dee" mysteries. I strayed on it accidentally on Netflix, but was initially put off by my memories of reading a couple of rather dull detective novels starring the (semi-) historical sleuth some years ago.

Yiwei Zhou as Di Renjie (2024)

Judge Dee's Mystery certainly starts off with a bang. The new incarnation of Di is apparently a master of Kung Fu as well as possessing a photographic memory: no details ever escape his notice, and - despite his reputation as a ne'er-do-well - his travels in the wastelands around China have clearly taught him a good deal about the world and its ways.

Di and his love-interests

The effortlessly cool cast is led by forty-year-old Yiwei Zhou, with Wang Likun as his love-interest Cao An, and Zhong Cuxi as the all-powerful (yet beleaguered) Empress.

Di's side-kicks

But of course every detective needs his Watson. In this case, as an official magistrate, Di travels with quite an entourage. There's his father's old friend Hong Liang (played by You Yongzhi), Ta Ji as his muscle, Qiao Tai, and Lingzi Qu as the irrepressible Ma Rong.

Ma Rong

This latter is by far my favourite character. She plays a kind of Sancho Panza to Judge Dee's Don Quixote, and is always ready to scull a drink or start a sword-fight. She's also (clearly) deeply in love with Di Renjie, but is forced to accept the fact that he sees her as a comrade rather than one of the delicate, lute-playing ladies he prefers to keep company with.

The delectable Cao An

The plots are (for the most part) absurdly convoluted, and sometimes contain hints of the supernatural. They tend to start in the middle of the hour, presumably to encourage us to continue watching, and last for three or four episodes each. They often begin when Di Renjie is posted to a new district, and is thus forced to try and make sense of the particular intrigues and corruption in his new home base.

Cao An & Di Renjie share a moment

•

Sharon Lathan: Robert van Gulik & Family

Robert Van Gulik, the originator of the series, was born in Holland but brought up in Indonesia, where he first acquired his taste for Eastern cultures and languages. He met his wife Shui Shifang, daughter of a Qing dynasty Imperial, in China during the Second World War. In 1940 he "stumbled across an obscure and anonymous 18th-century Chinese novel," as Sharon Lathan puts it in her brief online biography of the author:

The novel, titled Wu-tsé-t’ien-szû-ta-ch’i-an (Four great strange cases of Empress Wu’s reign), was a fictional account of the deeds of Judge Dee, one of the heroes of traditional Chinese detective fiction, and was set during the 7th-century Tang Dynasty. ... Robert not only translated the novel into English, he delved into the history of Chinese Penal Code and other legal literature of the period. Between WWII and his diplomatic duties, it was not until 1949 that Robert was able to publish his translation — Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved by Judge Dee ...

My English text was meant only as a basis for a printed Chinese and/or Japanese version, my aim being to show modern Chinese and Japanese writers that their own ancient crime-literature has plenty of source material for detective and mystery stories.

- Robert van Gulik

His fascination with old Chinese detective stories, and with Judge Dee, prompted Robert van Gulik to write original stories for modern readers. His first original story was The Chinese Maze Murders published in 1951, but only in Japanese and Chinese as he believed the stories would have more interest to readers from those cultures. He was correct ... so he soon followed with two more novels about Judge Dee.

"Not until 1956 did he translate and publish his first three novels into English and Dutch. All of his subsequent novels were published in English first, with the translations coming afterwards."

Di Renjie examines a corpse

If you compare the picture above with the one below, you may get some idea of the superior attractions of the detailed period recreation of Dee's world in the TV series to the original crude drawings van Gulik insisted on inflicting on his text.

To put it bluntly, he was no artist. He was, however, a craftsman in the classical tradition of the Western detective novel. And this mixture between chinoiserie and golden age detection has proved a potent and (saleable) mixture ever since.

Robert Van Gulik: Dee Goong An (1949)

•

Di Renjie investigates

Nor would it be impertinent to add that the seventh century CE, the highwater mark of the Tang dynasty in China, is a conveniently distant period to set stories in. The costumes and architecture of the era, lovingly recreated in the TV series, represent the golden age of Chinese civilisation, and are thus familiar to history buffs everywhere. As Ezra Pound once put it, with his customary concision:

a snotty barbarian ignorant of T'ang history need not deceive one

- Pisan Cantos, LXXIV: 32.

Empress Wu

I guess that what interests me most about this act of cultural cross-pollination is the complete ease with which it's been carried out. The credits of the TV show are quick to assure us that the stories that follows are fictional, and thus not historically accurate, but the producers seem to anticipate that the fact they were created by "the Dutch author Robert van Gulik" will be of far less significance to their target audience.

Qiao Tai

Van Gulik was, admittedly, no mere fan of all things Oriental. He had a PhD in Chinese language and culture from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and his publications include a number of Academic works on Ancient Chinese art, music and sexuality: all subjects which recur in his fiction. The Judge Dee stories themselves can be dated fairly precisely between 663 and 681 CE, the apogee of the Tang dynasty, before the interregnum of 690-705. His wife's intimate insider's knowledge of Chinese culture and mores must also have been invaluable to him.

Hong Liang

One of the online critics of the TV series complains that:

Despite the short stints of multiple cases, the second half of the drama became rather muddied and less intriguing compared to the first half. Ultimately, this drama didn’t live up to its potential given the high production value and strong cast.

Given that she also casts aspersions on my favourite character, however, I find it hard to take this critique very seriously:

Ma Rong was bringing about problems left and right to the main cast ... She may be used as a vehicle for Judge Dee to impart certain lessons but the character and the actress were more irritating than entertaining.

However, as one of the more succinct comments on her post so eloquently puts it: "Don’t matter to me just give me more."

The series may not be flawless in all aspects, but the Ma Rong / Judge Dee / Cao An triptych seems to me a clear enactment of the classic id / ego / superego paradigm familiar from so much popular fiction: Think Bones / Kirk / Spock in the original Star Trek, or Deanna / Picard / Data in Star Trek: the Next Generation.

You need an emotionally driven character to represent the primacy of bodily appetites: Pigsy in Monkey (for instance) - or Ma Rong. Then you need a more lofty character who embodies wisdom and logical thinking: Tripitaka in Monkey - or, here, the ethereal Cao An.

Finally, you need a fusion of the two - an Everyman character steered from impulse to impulse by these conflicting influences upon them: Monkey himself - or Captain Kirk - or (as in this case) Di Renjie. They represent the ethical person, controlled neither by heart nor head but by both at once ... Where would adventure stories be without them?

Di Renjie

•

Sharon Lathan: Robert van Gulik with pet gibbon

Robert Hans van Gulik
(1910-1967)

1. Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. Translated from Dee Goong An (1949)
   1. The Case of the Double Murder at Dawn
   2. The Case of the Strange Corpse
   3. The Case of the Poisoned Bride
   • Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An): An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Detective Novel. Trans. Robert van Gulik. 1949. New York: Dover, 1976.
2. The Chinese Maze Murders (1950 / 1957)
   • Included in: The Haunted Monastery & The Chinese Maze Murders: Two Chinese Detective Novels. 1961 & 1957. New York: Dover, 1977.
3. The Chinese Bell Murders (1958)
4. The Chinese Gold Murders (1959)
5. The Chinese Lake Murders (1960)
6. The Chinese Nail Murders (1961)
7. The Haunted Monastery (1961)
   • Included in: The Haunted Monastery & The Chinese Maze Murders: Two Chinese Detective Novels. 1961 & 1957. New York: Dover, 1977.
8. The Red Pavilion (1961)
9. The Lacquer Screen (1962)
10. The Emperor's Pearl (1963)
11. The Monkey and the Tiger (1965)
    1. Morning of the Monkey
    2. The Night of the Tiger
12. The Willow Pattern (1965)
13. Murder in Canton (1966)
14. The Phantom of the Temple (1966)
15. Judge Dee at Work (1967)
    1. Five Auspicious Clouds
    2. The Red Tape Murders
    3. He Came With the Rain
    4. The Murder on the Lotus Pond
    5. The Two Beggars
    6. The Wrong Sword
    7. The Coffins of the Emperor
    8. Murder on New Year's Eve
16. Necklace and Calabash (1967)
17. Poets and Murder (1968)

Judge Dee's Mystery (2024)

Finds: A Japanese Doll

Yaegaki-hime doll (purchased 7/4/24)
photograph by Bronwyn Lloyd

This doll, which I found a few days ago in a Vintage shop, is clearly a rather distressed version of the one in the auctioneer's picture below. As you can see, while her showcase is intact, it appears to have suffered a little water-damage at some point. I guess what attracted me to her most was the curious white-fur-lined horned helmet she was carrying, though.

Yaegaki-hime doll in showcase (late 20th century)

Nor did I realise that the pale cardboard backdrop (in my one - not the one above) was supposed to represent falling snow.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Yaegaki-hime (1852)

This nineteenth-century print gives a better idea of the story, I think. As the description puts it:

In one of the most beautiful prints in the series, an elegantly dressed young lady dances with ghostly fox spirits while holding a samurai helmet above her head. She is Yaegaki-hime, heroine of the popular kabuki play Japan's Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety ... The play was originally written for the puppet theater and was first performed in Osaka in 1766; it debuted as a kabuki play in Edo in 1776. The story, which takes place on the shores of Lake Suwa ... is a fictionalized version of the real-life rivalry between the Takeda and Uesugi clans during the sixteenth century.

Brussels Yaegaki-kai: Yaegaki-hime (2011)

But who exactly is she, and what is she doing with that helmet?

Yaegaki is torn by conflicting loyalties to her father, Nagao Kenshin, and her beloved fiancé, Takeda Katsuyori, who has come in secret to the Nagao mansion to recover an heirloom helmet stolen by Yaegaki's father. In the scene known as the 'Fox Fires in the Inner Garden' ... Yaegaki removes the helmet, which is decorated with long white hair, from the shrine in her father's garden where it has been kept. The God of Suwa, who wants the helmet returned to its rightful owners, sends fox spirits as his messengers to help and guide Yaegaki. By following the footsteps of foxes over the ice, she will be able to make a safe crossing over frozen Lake Suwa and deliver the helmet to Katsuyori.

Brussels Yaegaki-kai: Yaegaki-hime (2011)

In her fascinating online article "Identifying 'Geisha Doll' Types," Dr. Judy Shoaf lists the following set of distinguishing motifs, under the general category of "Dance or theater roles":

Judy Shoaf: Yaegaki-Hime, a Kabuki role

Woman with helmet: Yaegaki-Hime

A princess (hime) with a silvery crown in her hair. She holds a horned helmet with a tuft of long white hair trailing from it; foxes may also figure in the design in some way. This is the heroine of the play Honcho Nijushiko, set in the 15th [sic.] century. She carries the precious helmet across a frozen lake, with the help of spirit-foxes, to rescue it and also her lover.

So, while the doll I found yesterday is a very different version of the figure, the presence of a horned Samurai helmet decorated with long white hair is quite sufficient to identify it.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Yaegaki-hime (1852)

•

Burmese String Puppet (purchased 25/5/22)
photograph by Bronwyn Lloyd

So now that I know that, what do I do? Why all this detail about a dusty old Japanese doll, found lurking in the corner of an SPCA shop?

I guess mainly because it's fairly typical of the little knick-knacks I've picked up from time to time to decorate my study.

The Japanese doll, Yaegaki-hime, is particularly attractive to me, especially now that I know who she is. She won't stop moving, for one thing: the little dangling metal strips of her headdress keep on vibrating, whether there's any movement outside to provoke it or not. And the whole subject of spirit-foxes, kitsune, in Japanese folklore also greatly appeals to me.

In fact, I can't recall coming across an object that interested me so much since Bronwyn and I found an ornate Burmese puppet - pictured above - in a Northland Hospice Shop, together with a pair of twin male-female marionettes from Rajasthan.

Burmese puppet

As you can see, my one is in much better condition than the one pictured above for sale. Mine still has his sword, for one thing, and the intricacy and detail of his costume has to be seen to be believed. He stares down at me as I work, daring me to do a bit better.

Then there are a number of book-ends and figurines of various types I've collected over the years:

Egyptian book-ends

Glossy examples of Ancient Egyptian kitsch figure largely, I have to admit, as do such pieces of Chinoiserie as the two temple lions below:

Chinese Foo Dogs

There's nothing really valuable in this collection, I'm sure. But I still like the sense of individuality about the various pieces, crafted initially (no doubt) for the international tourist market, but somehow made special by their peregrinations through the world.

How did they end up in the little vintage shops where I found them? Some are damaged, others pristine, but that just seems to add character.

Edmund Engelman: Freud's desk (1938)

A great deal has been written about the choice - and arrangement - of figures on Sigmund Freud's desk in Vienna. I doubt that any such significance can be attributed to my own selection of mainly Eastern puppets and figurines.

But they all feel like friends to me, and I like to examine them and recall the circumstances of our first meetings ...

Rajasthani Puppets

The Annotated Arabian Nights

Yasmine Seale, trans.: The Annotated Arabian Nights. Ed. Paulo Lemos Horta (2021)

A new translation of the Thousand and One Nights can be quite a hard sell. You'll note that I've listed some 27 of them at the foot of this post - and that's just a selection ...

They range from the first - and still most influential - Antoine Galland's 12-volume French translation (1704-17), to a more recent 4-volume Spanish translation by Salvador Peña Martín (2016).

Among them there are a dozen or so English versions, at least three of them - Payne, Burton, and Lyons - claiming to be 'complete' (whatever, precisely, that can be taken to mean):

1. Anonymous (from Antoine Galland) [1706-21] (French / English)
2. George Lamb (from Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall) [1826] (French / English)
3. Henry Torrens [1838] (English)
4. Edward W. Lane [1839-40] (English)
5. John Payne [1882-89] (English)
6. Richard F. Burton [1885-88] (English)
7. Andrew Lang (mostly retold from Galland) [1898] (English)
8. Laurence Housman (mostly retold from Galland) [1907-14] (English)
9. E. Powys Mathers (from Dr. J. C. Mardrus) [1923] (French / English)
10. A. J. Arberry [1953] (English)
11. N. J. Dawood [1954-57] (English)
12. Husain Haddawy [1990-95] (English)
13. Malcolm & Ursula Lyons [2008] (English)

I'm pleased to record that there's now another to add to that tally:

Yasmine Seale: Aladdin: A New Translation (2019)

The Annotated Arabian Nights, together with her earlier single-volume Aladdin, constitute all that we've seen so far of French-Syrian poet and translator Yasmine Seale's 1001 Nights. It's possible that there may be more to come, however. According to her Wikipedia entry Seale "is the first woman to translate the entirety of The Arabian Nights from French and Arabic into English."

Yasmine Seale

The "entirety of The Arabian Nights" cannot be referring solely to Seale's and her collaborator Paulo Lemos Horta's Annotated Arabian Nights. While that book certainly presents a very extensive selection from the immense body of materials which constitute the Nights, it can certainly not be called "complete."

Gabriel Roth Horta: Paulo Lemos Horta

Richard F. Burton (1885-88) filled 16 closely-printed volumes with his own attempt to provide a complete Arabian Nights. A good deal of that consisted of annotation and commentary, but the same cannot be said of John Payne (1882-89), whose translation eventually occupied 13 volumes of text, covering much the same territory.

The most recent "complete" English version of the Egyptian recension of the Nights (by far the most extensive of the various textual traditions), by Malcolm C. & Ursula Lyons (2008), occupies three volumes and 2,700-odd pages. But even that has been (lightly) edited for repetitions and redundancies.

Perhaps the most complete (and most universally praised) modern translation, Jamel Eddine Bencheikh and André Miquel's 3-volume French version for the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (2005-07) clocks in at 3,504 pages.

Hannā Diyāb: The Book of Travels (2022)

So what precisely is Seale's contribution to the Arabian Nights tradition? Here's Wikipedia again, in their page dedicated to the One Thousand and One Nights:

A new English language translation was published in December 2021, the first solely by a female author, Yasmine Seale, which removes earlier sexist and racist references. The new translation includes all the tales from Hanna Diyab and additionally includes stories previously omitted featuring female protagonists, such as tales about Parizade, Pari Banu, and the horror story Sidi Numan.

The reference to Hannā Diyāb is to a young Syrian traveller who visited Europe in the early eighteenth century, and - among all the other adventures detailed in his recently translated travel book - seems to have been the informant "Hanna from Aleppo" who told (or wrote out for?) Antoine Galland the so-called "orphan tales" which occupy the bulk of the last four volumes - roughly a third - of his translation.

Paulo Lemos Horta: Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights (2017)

To call Hannā Diyāb the co-author of the collection, as Paulo Lemos Horta does in his 2017 book Marvellous Thieves, is therefore no real exaggeration. Galland's diary for the period 1708-15 record details of 14 stories told him by the sbove-mentioned "Hanna from Aleppo". Roughly ten of these, albeit in greatly expanded form, made it into the final text of his Mille et une nuits (1704-17):

1. Histoire d'Aladdin ou la Lampe merveilleuse [The Story of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp] (told in 1709: May 5) [included in Galland, Vol. 9]
2. Les aventures de Calife Haroun Alraschid [The Night Adventures of Caliph Haroun-Al-Raschid] (May 10) [Vol. 10]
   1. Histoire de l'Aveugle Baba-Alidalla [The Story of the Blind Baba-Alidalla]
   2. Histoire de Sidi Nouman [History of Sidi Nouman]
3. Histoire de Cogia Hassan Alhababbal [The Story of Cogia Hassan Alhababbal] (May 29) [Vol. 10]
4. Histoire d'Ali-Baba et de quarante voleurs exterminés par une esclave [Tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves] (May 27) [Vol. 11]
5. Histoire d'Ali Cogia, Marchand de Bagdad [The Story of Ali Cogia, Merchant of Baghdad] (May 29) [Vol. 11]
6. Histoire du Cheval enchanté [The Ebony Horse] (May 13) [Vol. 11]
7. Histoire du prince Ahmed et de la fee Pari-Banou [History of Prince Ahmed and the Pari-Banou] (May 22) [Vol. 12]
8. Histoire des deux Soeurs jalouses de leur cadette [The Story of the two sisters jealous of their younger sister] (May 25) [Vol. 12]

As you can see, they include such classic tales as "Aladdin" and "Ali Baba". Galland made no reference to this indebtedness in any of his published writings. However, since he died while his translation was still in progress (the final two volumes appeared posthumously), this may have been more inadvertent than deliberate.

Publishers Weekly: Yasmine Seale has retranslated Aladdin (19/10/18)

But going back to Yasmine Seale's original translation of Aladdin. In his Guardian review of the book (2/11/18), Richard Lea quotes her as admitting that these recent discoveries of the full extent of Galland's indebtedness to Hannā Diyāb have had little effect on her version, since “the only text we have is Galland’s, and that is what I have to work with”:

But knowing the story of the tale’s construction makes Aladdin “a document of exchange, of translation on several levels, a product of both the Arabic and French literary traditions.”

Seale continues, “I’m less interested in what ‘a Frenchman’ or ‘a Syrian’ might have invented than in the particular voices of these two men”:

Both came from learned, cosmopolitan cities. They were complex products of their knowledge and experience – who isn’t? Each was familiar with and fascinated by the other’s culture and language.

As for the Nights themselves, she sees them as "part of the bloodstream of world literature. They’re furniture, like the great myths. Because of their endless, slippery nature (a sea of stories without an author) they have flowed freely across borders of language and genre.”

Robert Irwin: The Arabian Nightmare (1983)

In an earlier interview with Wendy Smith for Publisher's Weekly (10/10/18), Seale revealed something of her own background, and the reason why she sees herself as such an ideal translator for such "slippery", cross-cultural works:

My mother is Syrian, but my father was a mix: his parents were Russian and Tunisian, he had grown up in Britain, and both my parents wrote in English. I grew up speaking and hearing three languages: French, English, and Arabic. For a long time I felt that I was just going to be French; my studies focused on French literature, and that was going to be my identity. Then I thought, ‘No, I must learn Arabic and understand it properly — that’s part of my heritage.’ That’s why this work has been so pleasurable; I feel I can bring all that to the table and I don’t have to choose. Galland’s description of Topkapi Palace — which I can see from my window — finds its way into the descriptions of the mythical palaces in Aladdin, but so do Diyab’s experiences at the palace of Versailles. Aladdin is neither just an Orientalist fantasy, nor is it just the vision of a Syrian person in France; it’s both at the same time, and I find it moving that it can be both.

Edward Said: Orientalism (1978)

This sense of the Nights as a work so contaminated by diverse cultural influences that the very notion of "fidelity to the original", normally so crucial in translation, becomes literally meaningless, underlies Seale's work on both Aladdin and the Annotated Arabian Nights. As she herself puts it:

Fidelity to what? When you have a story that exists in 80 different versions, you have to make choices. To translate the Nights means continuing to shape the stories and acknowledging that you are bringing your own sensibility to them rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.

Finally, it seems, the Nights may have found a translator who not only understands but actually embodies their paradoxical nature:

I was trying to bring out the freshness, vivacity, and wit I saw in the original French; Galland was an incredibly witty and playful person. I didn’t want to do what a lot of other translators of the Nights have done, which is to translate it into deliberately archaic language. The 19th-century translators all did this, Richard Burton most famously; his translations, even by Victorian standards, are incredibly florid and elaborate. It was a way of creating this sense of distance from the world these texts came from — a sense that the East was unfathomable, strange, and alien. I wanted to bring out the modernity that is already in the text.

Lord Leighton: Sir Richard Burton (1876)

I have to acknowledge the truth in this. Much though I adore Burton's Nights, it is almost necessary to learn a new language, Burtonian, to understand them. Perhaps that's why they've had such an influence on writers who were not native speakers of English: Jorge Luis Borges, most famously, but also Hugo von Hoffmansthal in Austria and Junichiro Tanizaki in Japan.

Her comments on the actual process of translation are fascinating, too:

Translating the 14th-century Arabic texts is “a completely different experience,” Seale comments. “Galland’s style is fairly close to what we would recognize as English prose, but in the Arabic there is no punctuation; clauses are separated by the word wa, which means and, or the word fa, which can mean so, or then, or however, or because. As a translator, you have to intervene to shape the narrative and create a readable English paragraph. To want ‘authenticity’ in The Arabian Nights is a bit of a misnomer: these are stories that have continually shifted, that are constantly changing, that are made of their accretions and layers.”

Ferdinand Keller: Scheherazade and the Sultan (1880)

It's perhaps a bit cheeky - not to mention somewhat predictable - to suggest an analogy here with the legendary Scheherazade herself, subject - as well as putative author - of the Arabian Nights in much the same sense as we postulate the authors of other "inspired" writings. But then, Seale does almost invite the comparison:

"In the framing story that begins the Nights, this king kills his unfaithful wife and decides to take a new woman every night and kill her in the morning,” she explains. “Scheherazade intervenes and says, ‘I will save my sisters from this fate.’ What we know about her from the story is that she has collected books, she has a library, she has studied and memorized tales from previous times and the history of bygone ages. She is in this sense a translator and reinterpreter of these stories. Thinking about Scheherazade helped me think about the whole text as a series of conduits — stories being channeled through a series of vessels, Scheherazade being one. Every single person who has written them down, every translator, everyone who’s added to this ocean of stories, is a kind of boatman ferrying the stories along. It makes sense to me, rather than thinking about this binary of original and translation, to break down that boundary.

As for her own relationship to the text:

Translating Aladdin, Yasmine Seale says, “made me feel like there was a plan in my life all along and everything had been leading to this moment.” Speaking from a sun-drenched room in her home in Istanbul, she explains, “It was written down in the 18th century by a Frenchman, Antoine Galland, based on the story he was told by a young Syrian traveler named Hanna Diyab, so it is both a product of France and also of the Arab world. I grew up in France and studied French literature, with a particular interest in the 18th century, and then went to university and studied Arab literature. So it’s a text that combines my two great interests."

In other words, she too has "collected books", she too "has a library", and "has studied and memorized tales from previous times and the history of bygone ages."

So if we are being invited here to imagine Yasmine Seale as a Scheherazade for our own times, what better USP [= Unique Selling Point] could there be for a new translation of this most evergreen, baffling, and slippery of works, the Arabian Nights?

Seriously, how can you hesitate to add this beautifully illustrated and annotated new translation to your own bookshelf? I, for one, am thoroughly sold.

Michael Holtmann: Yasmine Seale's Annotated Arabian Nights (17/11/21)

•


Jack Ross: Arabian Nights Bookcase (30-7-2021)
[photograph: Bronwyn Lloyd]

The 1001 Nights:

Texts & Translations:



1. Texts [c.800-1986] [Arabic]
2. Antoine Galland [1704-1717] (French)
3. Dom Dennis Chavis & M. Cazotte [1788-89] (French)
4. Maximilian Habicht [1824-25] (German)
5. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall et al. [1826] (French / German / English)
6. Gustav Weil [1837-41] (German)
7. Henry Torrens [1838] (English)
8. Edward W. Lane [1839-40] (English)
9. John Payne [1882-89] (English)
10. Richard F. Burton [1885-88] (English)
11. Max Henning [1895-97] (German)
12. Andrew Lang [1898] (English)
13. Dr. J. C. Mardrus [1899-1904] (French)
14. Cary von Karwath [1906-14] (German)
15. Laurence Housman [1907-14] (English)
16. Enno Littmann [1921-28] (German)
17. M. A. Salye [1929-36] (Russian)
18. Francesco Gabrieli [1948] (Italian)
19. A. J. Arberry [1953] (English)
20. Rafael Cansinos-Asséns [1954-55] (Spanish)
21. N. J. Dawood [1954-57] (English)
22. René R. Khawam [1965-67 & 1985-88] (French)
23. Felix Tauer [1928-34] (Czech & German)
24. Husain Haddawy [1990-95] (English)
25. Jamel Eddine Bencheikh & André Miquel [1991-2001 & 2005-7] (French)
26. Malcolm & Ursula Lyons [2008] (English)
27. Salvador Peña Martín [2016] (Spanish)
28. Yasmine Seale [2019-2021] (English)
29. Miscellaneous



---




Galland manuscript (14th Century CE)

Texts:

Arabic


1. Alph Laylé Wa Laylé. 4 vols. Beirut: Al-Maktaba Al-Thakafiyat, A.H. 1401 [= 1981].


2. Arabic Key Readers. A Thousand and One Nights: Graduated Readings for English Speaking Students – Book 1: Story of the Book, Nights 1 through 9. Retold by Michel Nicola. Troy, Michigan: International Book Centre, 1986.


3. Zotenberg, Hermann. Histoire d’Alâ al-Din ou La Lampe Merveilleuse: Texte Arabe publié avec une notice sur quelques manuscrits des Mille et une nuits. Paris; Imprimerie Nationale, 1888.



Antoine Galland: Les Mille et Une Nuits (1704-17)

Translations:

Antoine Galland (1646-1715) – [12 vols: 1704-1717] (French)


4. Galland, Antoine, trans. Les Mille et Une Nuits: Contes arabes traduits par Galland. 12 vols. 1704-17. Ed. Gaston Picard. 2 vols. 1960. Paris: Garnier, 1975.


5. Galland, Antoine, trans. Les Mille et Une Nuits: Contes arabes. 12 vols. 1704-17. Ed. Jean Gaulmier. 3 vols. 1965. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1990, 1985, 1991.


6. Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories, Told by the Sultaness of the Indies, to divert the Sultan from the Execution of a bloody Vow he had made to marry a Lady every day, and have her cut off next Morning, to avenge himself for the Disloyalty of his first Sultaness, &c. Containing a better Account of the Customs, Manners, and Religion of the Eastern Nations, viz. Tartars, Persians, and Indians, than is to be met with in any Author hitherto published. Translated into French from the Arabian Mss. by M. Galland of the Royal Academy, and now done into English from the last Paris Edition. London: Andrew Bell, 1706-17. 16th ed. 4 vols. London & Edinburgh: C. Elliot, 1781.


7. The Arabian Nights. Illustrated with Engravings from Designs by R. Westall, R. A. 4 vols. London: Printed for C and J. Rivington et al., 1825.


8. Forster, the Rev. Edward, trans. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. 1812. Rev. G. Moir Bussey. Illustrated by 24 Engravings from Designs by R. Smirke, Esq. R. A. London: Joseph Thomas / T. Tegg; and Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1840.


9. Galland, A. Las Mil y Una Noches: Cuentos orientales. Trans. Pedro Pedraza y Páez. Biblioteca Hispania. Barcelona: Editorial Ramón Sopena, 1934.


10. Mack, Robert L., ed. Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. The World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.


Denis Chavis & Jacques Cazotte (fl. 1780s / 1719-1792) – [4 vols: 1788-89] (French)


11. Chavis, Dom, and M. Cazotte, trans. La Suite des Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes. Cabinet des Fées 38-41. 4 vols. Geneva: Barde & Manget, 1788-89.


Maximilian Habicht et al. (1775-1839) – [15 vols: 1824-25] (German)


12. Habicht, Max., Fr. H. von der Hagen, and Carl Schall, trans. Tausend und Eine Nacht, Arabische Erzählungen. 1824-25. Ed. Karl Martin Schiller. 12 vols. Leipzig: F. W. Hendel, 1926.


Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall / Guillaume-Stanislas Trébutien / George Lamb (1774-1856 / 1800-1870 / 1784-1834) – [3 vols: 1826] (German / French / English)


13. Lamb, George, trans. New Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Selected from the Original Oriental Ms. by J. Von Hammer, and Now First Translated into English. 1826. 3 vols in 1. Milton Keynes, UK: Palala Press, 2015.


Gustav Weil (1808-1889) – [4 vols: 1837-41] (German)


14. Weil, Gustav, trans. Tausendundeine Nacht. 1837-41. Ed. Inge Dreecken. 3 vols. Wiesbaden: R. Löwit, n.d. [c. 1960s]


Henry Whitelock Torrens (1806-1852) – [1 vol: 1838] (English)


15. Torrens, Henry, trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: Translated from the Arabic of the Ægyptian M.S. as edited by Wm. Hay Macnaghten, Esqr. 1838. India: Pranava Books, n.d.


Edward William Lane (1801-1876) – [3 vols: 1839-40] (English)


16. Lane, Edward William, trans. The Thousand and One Nights, Commonly Called, in England, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. A New Translation from the Arabic, with Copious Notes. 3 vols. London: Charles Knight, 1839-41.


17. Lane, Edward William, trans. The Thousand and One Nights; Commonly Called The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Ed. Edward Stanley Poole. 3 vols. 1859. London: Chatto, 1912.


18. Lane, Edward William, trans. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Ed. Stanley Lane-Poole. 4 vols. 1906. Bohn’s Popular Library. London: G. Bell, 1925.


19. Lane, Edward William, trans. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments or The Thousand and One Nights: The Complete, Original Translation of Edward William Lane, with the Translator’s Complete, Original Notes and Commentaries on the Text. New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1927.


20. Lane, Edward William, trans. The Thousand and One Nights, or Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Wood Engravings from Original Designs by William Harvey. London: Chatto and Windus, 1930.


John Payne (1842-1916) – [13 vols: 1882-89] (English)


21. Payne, John, trans. Oriental Tales: The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night [and other tales]. 1882-97. 15 vols. Herat edition (limited to 500 copies): No. 141. London: Printed for Subscribers Only, 1901.
    1. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night; Now First Completely Done into English Prose and Verse, from the Original Arabic. 9 vols (London: Villon Society, 1882-84)
    2. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 2)
    3. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 3)
    4. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 4)
    5. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 5)
    6. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 6)
    7. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 7)
    8. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 8)
    9. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (vol. 9)
    10. Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta (1814-’18) Editions of the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Not Occurring in the Other Printed Texts of the Work; Now First Done into English. 3 vols. (London: Villon Society, 1884)
    11. Tales from the Arabic (vol. 2)
    12. Tales from the Arabic (vol. 3)
    13. Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp; Zein ul Asnam and the King of the Jinn: Two Stories Done into English from the Recently Discovered Arabic Text (London: Villon Society, 1889)
    14. The Persian letters, with introduction and notes, done into English from the original by Montesquieu (London, 1897)
    15. A Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour and Tartarian Tales, by Thomas Simon Gueulette (London, 1897)


22. Payne, John, trans. The Portable Arabian Nights. 1882-1884. Ed. Joseph Campbell. 1952. New York: The Viking Press, 1963.


23. Payne, John, trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. 1882-1884. Publisher's Note by Steven Moore. 3 vols. Ann Arbor, MI: Borders Classics, 2007.


Richard F. Burton (1821-1890) – [16 vols: 1885-88] (English)


24. Burton, Richard F, trans. A Plain and Literal Translation of The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, Now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: With Introduction, Explanatory Notes on the Manners and Customs of Moslem Men and a Terminal Essay upon the History of the Nights. 10 vols. Benares [= Stoke-Newington]: Kamashastra Society, 1885. N.p. [= Boston]: The Burton Club, n.d.


25. Burton, Richard F., trans. Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night with Notes Anthropological and Explanatory. 6 vols. Benares [= Stoke-Newington]: Kamashastra Society, 1886-88. 7 vols. N.p. [= Boston]: The Burton Club, n.d.


26. Burton, Richard F., trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 1885. 10 vols. U.S.A.: The Burton Club, n.d. [c.1940s].


27. Burton, Richard F., trans. Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights with Notes Anthropological and Explanatory. 1886-88. 6 vols. U.S.A..: The Burton Club, n.d. [c. 1940s].


28. Burton, Richard F., trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 1885. Decorated with 1001 Illustrations by Valenti Angelo. 3 vols. New York: The Heritage Press, 1934.


29. Burton, Richard F., trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 1885. Decorated with 1001 Illustrations by Valenti Angelo. 3 vols. 1934. The Heritage Press. New York: The George Macy Companies, Inc., 1962.


30. Burton, Richard F., trans. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, or The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Selection of the Most Famous and Representative of these Tales. Ed. Bennett A Cerf. 1932. Introductory Essay by Ben Ray Redman. New York: Modern Library, 1959.


31. Burton, Sir Richard, trans. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Notes by Henry Torrens, Edward Lane, John Payne. Illustrations by Arthur Szyk. 1955. The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written. Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1983.


32. Burton, Richard F. Love, War and Fancy: The Customs and Manners of the East from Writings on The Arabian Nights. Ed. Kenneth Walker. 1884. London: Kimber Paperback Library, 1964.


33. Chagall, Marc, illus. Arabian Nights: Four Tales from a Thousand and One Nights. Introduction by Norbert Nobis. Trans. Richard F. Burton. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1988.


34. Zipes, Jack, ed. Arabian Nights: The Marvels and Wonders of the Thousand and One Nights, Adapted from Richard F. Burton’s Unexpurgated Translation. Signet Classic. New York: Penguin, 1991.


35. Zipes, Jack, ed. Arabian Nights, Volume II: More Marvels and Wonders of the Thousand and One Nights, Adapted from Sir Richard F. Burton’s Unexpurgated Translation. Signet Classic. New York: New American Library, 1999.


Max Henning (1861-1927) – [24 vols: 1895-97] (German)


36. Henning, Max, trans. Tausend und eine Nacht. 1895-97. Ed. Hans W. Fischer. Berlin & Darmstadt: Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft, 1957.


Andrew Lang (1844-1912) – [1 vol: 1898] (English)


37. Lang, Andrew, ed. Tales from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated by H. J. Ford. 1898. London: Wordsworth Classics, 1993.


38. Lang, Andrew, trans. Tales from The Arabian Nights. 1898. Illustrated by Edmond Dulac. Afterword by Pete Hamill. The World’s Best Reading. Sydney & Auckland: Reader’s Digest, 1991.


Dr. J. C. Mardrus (1868–1949) – [16 vols: 1899-1904] (French)


39. Mardrus, Dr. J. C., trans. Le Livre des Mille et une Nuits. 16 vols. Paris: Édition de la Revue blanche, 1899-1904. Ed. Marc Fumaroli. 2 vols. Paris: Laffont, 1989.


40. Mathers, Edward Powys, trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: Rendered from the Literal and Complete Version of Dr. J. C. Mardrus; and Collated with Other Sources. 1923. 8 vols. London: The Casanova Society, 1929.


41. Mardrus, Dr J. C. The Queen of Sheba: Translated into French from his own Arabic Text. Trans. E. Powys Mathers. London: The Casanova Society, n.d. [1924].


42. Mathers, E. Powys. Sung to Shahryar: Poems from the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. London: The Casanova Society, 1925.


43. Mathers, E. Powys, trans. Arabian Love Tales: Being Romances Drawn from the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Rendered into English from the Literal French Translation of Dr. J. C. Mardrus. Illustrated by Lettice Sandford. London: The Folio Society, 1949.


44. Mathers, E. Powys, trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: Rendered into English from the Literal and Complete French Translation of Dr. J. C. Mardrus. 4 vols. 1949. 2nd ed. 1964. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.


45. The Arabian Nights: The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Rendered into English from the Literal and Complete French Translation of Dr. J. C. Mardrus by Powys Mathers. Introduction by Marina Warner. 6 vols. London: The Folio Society, 2003.
    • Vol. 1: with 8 colour illustrations by Kay Nielsen, 375 pp.
    • Vol. 2: with 8 colour illustrations by Grahame Baker, 424 pp.
    • Vol. 3: with 8 colour illustrations by Debra McFarlane, 424 pp.
    • Vol. 4: with 8 colour illustrations by Roman Pisarev, 424 pp.
    • Vol. 5: with 8 colour illustrations by Jane Ray, 431 pp.
    • Vol. 6: with 8 colour illustrations by Neil Packer, 448 pp.


Cary von Karwath (?) – [19 vols: 1906-14] (German)


46. Karwath, Cary Von, trans. 1001 Nacht: Vollständige Ausgabe in 18 Taschenbüchern mit einem Zusatzband: Nach dem arabischen Urtext angeordnet und übertragen von Cary von Karwath. 1906-14. 19 vols. München: Goldmann Verlag, 1987.


Laurence Housman (1865-1959) – [4 vols: 1907-14] (English)


47. Housman, Laurence. Stories from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated by Edmund Dulac. 1907. New York: Doran, n.d.


48. Housman, Laurence. Sindbad the Sailor and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated by Edmund Dulac. 1907. Weathervane Books. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1978.


Enno Littmann (1875-1958) – [6 vols: 1921-28] (German)


49. Littmann, Enno, trans. Die Erzählungen aus den Tausendundein Nächten: Vollständige deutsche Ausgabe in zwölf Teilbänden zum ersten mal nach dem arabischen Urtext der Calcuttaer Ausgabe aus dem Jahre 1839 übertragen von Enno Littmann. 1921-28. 2nd ed. 1953. 6 vols in 12. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1976.


50. Littmann, Enno, trans. Geschichten der Liebe aus den 1001 Nächten: Aus dem arabischen Urtext übertragen von Enno Littmann. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1973.


Mikhail Alexandrovich Salye (1899-1961) – [8 vols: 1929-36] (Russian)


51. Salye, M. A., trans. Тысяча и Одна Ночь. 1929-36. 6 vols. Санкт-Петербург: «Кристалл», 2000.


Francesco Gabrieli (1904-1996) – [4 vols: 1948] (Italian)


52. Gabrieli, Francesco, ed. Le mille e una notte: Prima versione integrale dall’arabo. Trans. Francesco Gabrieli, Antonio Cesaro, Constantino Pansera, Umberto Rizzitano and Virginia Vacca. 1948. Gli struzzi 35. 4 vols. Torino: Einaudi, 1972.


53. Faccioli, Emilio, ed. Le mille e una notte: Scelta di racconti. Dall’edizione integrale diretta da Francesco Gabrieli. Letture per la Scuola Media 56. Torino: Einaudi, 1980.


Arthur John Arberry (1905-1969) – [1 vol: 1953] (English)


54. Arberry, A. J., trans. Scheherazade: Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. London: Allen and Unwin, 1953.


55. Arberry, A. J., trans. Scheherazade: Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Illustrations by Asgeir Scott. 1953. A Mentor Book. New York: New American Library, 1955.


Rafael Cansinos-Asséns (1882-1964) – [3 vols: 1954-55] (Spanish)


56. Cansinos Asséns, Rafael, trans. Libro de las mil y una noches, por primera vez puestas en castellano del árabe original. Prologadas, anotadas y cotejadas con las principales versiones en otras lenguas y en la vernácula por Rafael Cansinos Asséns. 3 vols. 1954-55. Mexico: Aguilar, 1990.


Nessim Joseph Dawood (1927-2014) – [2 vols: 1954-57] (English)


57. Dawood, N. J., trans. The Thousand and One Nights: The Hunchback, Sindbad, and Other Tales. Penguin 1001. 1954. Penguin Classics L64. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955.


58. Dawood, N. J., trans. Aladdin and Other Tales from The Thousand and One Nights. Penguin Classics L71. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957.


59. Dawood, N. J., trans. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. 1954-57. 2nd ed. 1973. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.


René R. Khawam (1917-2004) – [7 vols: 1965-67 & 1985-88] (French)


60. Khawam, René R., trans. Les Mille et une nuits. Traduction Nouvelle et Complète faite sur les Manuscrits par René R. Khawam. 4 Vols. Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1965-67.


61. Khawam, René R., trans. Les Mille et une nuits. 4 vols. 1965-67. 2nd ed. 1986. Paris: Presses Pocket, 1989.


62. Khawam, René R., trans. Les Aventures de Sindbad le Marin. Paris: Phébus, 1985.


63. Khawam, René R., trans. Les Aventures de Sindbad le Terrien. Paris: Phébus, 1986.


64. Khawam, René R., trans. Le Roman d’Aladin. Paris: Phébus, 1988.


Felix Tauer (1893-1981) – [8 vols: 1928-34] (Czech & German)


65. Tauer, Felix, trans. Tisíc a Jedna Noc. 1928-34. 5 vols. 1973. Praha: Ikar, 2001.


66. Tauer, Felix, trans. Erotische Geschichten aus den tausendundein Nächten: Aus dem arabischen Urtext der Wortley Montague-Handschrift übertragen und herausgegeben von Felix Tauer. 1966. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1983.


67. Tauer, Felix, trans. Neue Erzählungen aus den Tausendundein Nächten: Die in anderen Versionen von »1001 Nacht« nicht enthaltenen Geschichten der Wortley-Montague-Handschrift der Oxforder Bodleian Library; Aus dem arabischen Urtext vollständig übertragen und erläutert von Felix Tauer. 2 vols. 1982. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1989.


Husain Haddawy (?) – [2 vols: 1990-95] (English)


68. Haddawy, Husain, trans. The Arabian Nights: Based on the Text of the Fourteenth-Century Syrian Manuscript edited by Muhsin Mahdi. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990.


69. Haddawy, Husain, trans. The Arabian Nights II: Sindbad and Other Popular Stories. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995.


70. Heller-Roazen, Daniel, ed. The Arabian Nights. The Husain Haddaway Translation Based on the Text Edited by Muhsin Mahdi: Contexts, Criticism. 1990 & 1995. A Norton Critical Edition. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.


Jamel Eddine Bencheikh & André Miquel (1930-2005 / 1929- ) – [10 vols: 1977-2001 & 2005-7] (French)


71. Miquel, André. Un Conte des Mille et Une Nuits: Ajîb et Gharîb (Traduction et perspectives d’analyse). Paris: Flammarion, 1977.


72. Miquel, André. Sept contes des Mille et Une Nuits, ou Il n’y a pas de contes innocents, suivi d’entretiens autour de Jamaleddine Bencheikh et Claude Brémond. Paris: Sindbad, 1981.


73. Bremond, Claude, ed. Les Dames de Bagdad: Conte des Mille et une nuits. Trans. André Miquel / Claude Bremond, A Chraïbi, A. Larue, and M. Sironval. La Nébuleuse du conte: Essai sur les premiers contes de Galland. Paris: Desjonquères, 1991.


74. Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine, and André Miquel, ed. Les Mille et Une Nuits: Contes choisis. Trans. Jamel Eddine Bencheikh, André Miquel & Touhami Bencheikh. 4 vols. Folio. Paris: Gallimard, 1991-2001.


75. Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine, and André Miquel, trans. Les Mille et Une Nuits. 3 vols. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 2005-7.


76. Album Mille et Une Nuits: Iconographie. Choisie et commentée par Margaret Sironval. Albums de la Pléiade, 44. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 2005.


Prof. Malcolm C. & Dr. Ursula Lyons (1929-2019 / ?-2016) – [3 vols: 2008] (English)


77. Lyons, Malcolm & Ursula, trans. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights. Introduction by Robert Irwin. 3 vols. Penguin Classics Hardback. London: Penguin, 2008.


78. Lyons, Malcolm & Ursula, trans. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights. Volume 1: Nights 1 to 294. Introduction by Robert Irwin. 3 vols. 2008. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2010.


79. Lyons, Malcolm & Ursula, trans. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights. Volume 2: Nights 295 to 719. Introduced & Annotated by Robert Irwin. 3 vols. 2008. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2010.


80. Lyons, Malcolm & Ursula, trans. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights. Volume 3: Nights 719 to 1001. Introduction by Robert Irwin. 3 vols. 2008. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2010.


81. Lyons, Malcom C., trans. Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange. Introduction by Robert Irwin. Penguin Classics. 2014. London: Penguin Random House UK, 2015.


Salvador Peña Martín (1958- ) – [4 vols: 2016] (Spanish)


82. Peña Martín, Salvador, trans. Mil y una noches. 4 vols. 2016. Madrid: Editorial Verbum, 2018.


Yasmine Seale (1989- ) – [2 vols: 2019-2021] (English)


83. Seale, Yasmine, trans. Aladdin: A New Translation. Ed. Paulo Lemos Horta. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.


84. Seale, Yasmine, trans. The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights. Ed. Paulo Lemos Horta. Foreword by Omar El Akkad. Afterword by Robert Irwin. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.


Miscellaneous


85. Blyton, Enid. Tales from the Arabian Nights: Retold by Enid Blyton. Illustrated by Anne & Janet Johnstone. 1951. London: Latimer House, 1956.


86. Bull, René, illus. The Arabian Nights. Children’s Classics. Bath: Robert Frederick, 1994.


87. Ouyang, Wen-Ching, & Paulo Lemos Horta, ed. The Arabian Nights: An Anthology. Everyman’s Library 361. A Borzoi Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.


88. Pinson, R. W., ed. Märchen aus 1001 Nacht: Die berühmten Geschichten aus dem Morgenland. Selected by G. Blau, A. Horn & R. W. Pinson. 1979. Bindlach: Gondrom Verlaf GmbH, 2001.


89. Samsó, Julio, trans. Antología de Las Mil y Una Noches. Libro de Bolsillo: Clásicos 599. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1975.


90. Scott, Anne, ed. Tales from the Arabian Nights. Retold by Vladimir Hulpach. Trans. Vera Gissing. Illustrated by Mária Zelibská. London: Cathay Books, 1981.


91. Weber, Henry, ed. Tales of the East: Comprising the Most Popular Romances of Oriental Origin, and the Best Imitations by European Authors: with New Translations, and Additional Tales, Never Before Published: to which is prefixed an introductory dissertation, containing the account of each work, and of its author, or translator. 3 vols. Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1812.
    Vol. I:
    • The Arabian Nights [Galland (1704-17)]
    • New Arabian Nights' Entertainments [Chavis & Cazotte (1788-89)]
    Vol. II:
    • New Arabian Nights' Entertainments (cont.)
    • Persian Tales [Pétis de la Croix (1710)]
    • Persian Tales of Inatulla [Alexander Dow (1768)]
    • Oriental Tales [A. C. P., Comte de Caylus (1749)]
    • Nourjahad [Frances Sheridan (1767)]
    • "Four Additional Tales from the Arabian Nights" [Caussin de Perceval (1806)]
    Vol. III:
    • The Mogul Tales [Thomas-Simon Gueullette (1723)]
    • Turkish Tales [Pétis de la Croix (1710)]
    • Tartarian Tales [Thomas-Simon Gueullette (1723)]
    • Chinese Tales [Thomas-Simon Gueullette (1723)]
    • Tales of the Genii [James Ridley (1764)]
    • History of Abdalla the Son of Hanif [Jean Paul Bignon (1713)]


92. Wiggin, Kate Douglas & Nora A. Smith, eds. The Arabian Nights: Their Best-Known Tales. Illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1996.


93. Williams-Ellis, Amabel. The Arabian Nights Stories Retold. 1957. London: Blackie, 1972.

Jack Ross: Arabian Nights Bookcase (30-7-2021)
[photograph: Bronwyn Lloyd]

Secondary Literature:

1. Abou-Hussein, Hiam & Charles Pellat. Cheherazade: Personage Littéraire. Algiers: Société Nationale d’Édition et de Diffusion, 1976.


2. Ali, Muhsin Jassim. Scheherazade in England: A Study of Nineteenth-Century English Criticism of the Arabian Nights. Washington: Three Continents Press, 1981.


3. Baroud, Mahmoud. The Shipwrecked Sailor in Arabic and Western Literature: Ibn Tufail and His Influence on European Writers. London & New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2012.


4. Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine. Les Mille et une Nuits ou la parole prisonnière. Bibliothèque des Idées. Paris: Gallimard, 1988.


5. Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine, Claude Bremond and André Miquel. Mille et un Contes de la Nuit. Bibliothèque des Idées. Paris: Gallimard, 1991.


6. Campbell, Kay Hardy, Ferial J. Ghazoul, Andras Hamori, Muhsin Mahdi, Christopher M. Murphy, & Sandra Naddaff. The 1001 Nights: Critical Essays and Annotated Bibliography. Mundus Arabicus 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Dar Mahjar, 1983.


7. Caracciolo, Peter L., ed. The Arabian Nights in English Literature: Studies in the Reception of The Thousand and One Nights into British Culture. London: Macmillan, 1988.


8. Chauvin, Victor. Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes ou relatifs aux arabes publiés dans l’Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885. 12 vols. Liège: H. Vaillant-Carmanne, Leipzig: O. Harrassowitz, 1892-1922.
   • Vol. 1: Préface (pp. v-xxxix). 1892.
   • Vol. 2: Kalîlah. 1897.
   • Vol. 3: Louqmâne et les Fabulistes. Barlaam. Antar et les Romans de chevalerie. 1898.
   • Vol. 4: Les 1001 Nuits (1ere partie). 1900.
   • Vol. 5: Les 1001 Nuits (2ème partie). 1901.
   • Vol. 6: Les 1001 Nuits (3ème partie). 1902.
   • Vol. 7: Les 1001 Nuits (4ème partie). 1903.
   • Vol. 8: Syntipas. 1904.
   • Vol. 9: Recueils Orientaux. (pp. 57-95). 1905.
   • Vol. 10: Table des Matières. (pp. 145-46). 1907.


9. Chauvin, Victor. La Récension Égyptienne des Mille et Une Nuits. Bruxelles: Office de Publicité / Société Belge de Librairie, 1899.


10. Chebel, Malek. Psychanalyse des Mille et Une Nuits. 1996. Petite Bibliothèque Payot. Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages, 2002.


11. Diyāb, Hannā. The Book of Travels. Trans. Elias Muhanna. Foreword by Yasmine Seale. Introduction by Johannes Stephan. Afterword by Paulo Lemos Horta. Library of Arabic Literature, 87. 2021. New York: New York University Press, 2022.


12. Eliséef, Nikita. Thèmes et motifs des Mille et Une Nuits: Essai de Classification. Beirut: Institut Français de Damas, 1949.


13. Gerhardt, Mia I. The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963.


14. Ghazoul, Ferial Jabouri. The Arabian Nights: A Structural Analysis. Cairo: Cairo Associated Institution for the Study and Presentation of Arab Cultural Values, 1980.


15. Ghazoul, Ferial J. Nocturnal Poetics: The Arabian Nights in Comparative Context. Cairo : The American University in Cairo Press, 1996.


16. Hamori, Andras. On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature. 1974. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.


17. Horta, Paulo Lemos. Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2017.


18. Irwin, Robert. The Arabian Nightmare. 1983. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.


19. Irwin, Robert. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Allen Lane, 1994.


20. Kilito, Abdelfattah. L’oeil et l’aiguille: Essai sur “les mille et une nuits.” Textes à l’appui: série islam et société. Paris: Editions la Découverte, 1992.


21. Lahy-Hollebecque, Marie. Schéhérazade ou L’éducation d’un Roi. 1927. Collection Destins de Femmes. Paris: Pardès, 1987.


22. Lane, E. W. Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. 1836. Ed. E. Stanley Poole. Everyman’s Library 315. London: Dent, New York: Dutton, 1963.


23. Larzul, Sylvette. Les Traductions Françaises des Mille et Une Nuits: Études des versions Galland, Trébutien et Mardrus. Précédée de “Traditions, traductions, trahisons,” par Claude Bremond. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996.


24. Lewis, Bernard. The Muslim Discovery of Europe. 1982. London: Phoenix, 1994.


25. Lynch, Enrique. La Lección de Sheherazade. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, 1987.


26. Mahdi, Muhsin. The Thousand and One Nights. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995.


27. Marzolph, Ulrich, & Richard van Leeuwen, with the assistance of Hassan Wassouf, ed. The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2004.


28. Marzolph, Ulrich, ed. The Arabian Nights Reader. Series in Fairy-Tale Studies. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2006.


29. May, Georges. Les Mille et une nuits d’Antoine Galland, ou le chef d’oeuvre invisible. Paris: P.U.F., 1986.


30. Naddaff, Sandra. Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the Aesthetics of Repetition in the 1001 Nights. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991.


31. Nicholson, Reynold A. A Literary History of the Arabs. 1907. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969.


32. Pinault, David. Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights. Studies in Arabic Literature 15. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992.


33. Ranelagh, E. J. The Past We Share: The Near Eastern Ancestry of Western Folk Literature. London: Quartet, 1979.


34. Sallis, Eva K. Sheherazade through the Looking Glass: The Metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights. Curzon Studies in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999.


35. Von Grunebaum, Gustave E. Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation. 1946. Phoenix Books 69. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.


36. Weber, Edgard. Imaginaire Arabe et Contes Erotiques. Collection Comprendre le Moyen-Orient. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1990.

Robert Irwin: The Arabian Nights: A Companion (1994)

•