The Arabian Nights: A Selection of Stories from Alif Laila Wa Laila, the Arabian Nights Entertainment (Classic Reprint)

Arabian Nights Entertainments is a book which has been the dehght of Europe and America for nearly two hundred years. Before that time, it had been the dehght of Western A sia, and of the Mohammedan colonies in Europe and Northern A frica, it would be hard to say for how many centuries more. Since the Frenchman, Galland, first introduced it to readers of his own country, translations of it have been made into every language of Europe. In the English language, there have been, many translations from the original text. The interest in the text has increased in the East, and new manuscripts have been found, and different editions printed from them at Cairo and Calcutta. The literature of the subject is now an important department of literary criticism. For our readers, young or old, it is perhaps enough to say, that the stories are as popular in the Eastas they have ever been in their translated forms, and that, at this moment, they may be heard recited wherever a considerable company of A rabs, Turks, or of other Eastern races come together. Nor is the interest which attaches to them in the Eastor the West difficult to account for. The stories are pure narrative, narrative without any moral, without any object but that of amusing or pleasing the reader. There is not the slightest pretence that they are instructive, nor that they will lead in particular paths of virtue, nor that they illustrate great or small principles of life or of society. They are simply stories.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserv