Sheherazade Through the Looking Glass

The Thousand and One Nights was reborn into an alien environment in 1704, its signs being received in a radically different way from their original meanings. Works of literature change as people and cultures who read them change. This study explores the Nights with reference to this view of literature.

Eva Sallis

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Nights; Chapter 2 Arabic Textual History of the Alf layla wa-layla; Chapter 3 English Translations of the Thousand and One Nights; Chapter 4 Reading the Arabian Nights; Chapter 5 Sheherazade/Shahraz?d: A Commentary on the Frame Tale1This Chapter makes use of a cross section rather than an exhaustive collection of frame tale variants. They are taken from the following: Muhsin Mahdi ed., Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984) (the Leiden text); Alf layla wa-layla (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-thaq?fiyya, 1981); W. H. Macnaghten ed., The Alif Laila, or Book of the Thousand Nights Commonly Known as the Arabian Nights Entertainments (Calcutta: W. Thacker, 1839) (the Macnaghten text); Antoine Galland trans., Les Mille et une Nuits Édouard Gauttier ed., (Paris: Didot, 1822);, Antoine Galland] The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Edinburgh: William P Nimmo,, n. d.]); Richard Burton trans., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Burton Club,, 1885]); Edward Forster trans., The Arabian Nights (London: William Miller, 1810); Husain Haddawy trans., The Arabian Nights (London: W. W. Norton, 1990); Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Beirut: Maktaba al-?ay?t, 1995); Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Breslau, 1824-43); Kit?b alf layla wa-layla (Bulaq, 1835); Edward William Lane trans., The Thousand and One Nights Commonly Called the Arabian Nights Entertainments (London: Charles Knight, 1839); Enno Littmann trans., Die Erzählungen aus den Tausendundein Nächten (1953; Frankfurt: Insel-Verlag, 1976); Powys Mathers trans., The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night Translated from French of J. C. Mardrus. (London: Routledge, 1953); John Payne trans., The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (Villon Society,, 1884]). Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from Payne's translation.; Chapter 6 Readings of Selected Stories and Anecdotes;