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-:''http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Thousand_Nights_and_a_Night'' 
-'''''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights''''' or the '''Arabian Nights''' is a collection of [[Middle Eastern literature|Middle East]]ern stories compiled over thousands of years by various authors. Their roots are traced back to somewhere between AD 800-900. The first European version of the ''Book of the Thousand and One Nights'' was translated into French by [[Antoine Galland]] from an Arabic text and other sources. Galland's "translation" included stories that were not in the original Arabic manuscript. "Aladdin's Lamp" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" appeared first in Galland's translation and cannot be found in any of the original manuscripts. Galland's version of the Nights were immensely popular throughout Europe, a well-known English translation is that by [[Sir Richard Francis Burton]], entitled ''The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night'' ([[1885]]). +# The capital of, and largest city in [[Iraq]], situated in the center of the country on the [[Tigris]] river; an ancient city and historical center of the [[Muslim]] world.
- +
-From a [[genre-theoretical]] point of view, [[Todorov]] places the tales within the realm of the ''[[marvelous]]'' rather than the ''[[Fantastic literature|fantastic]]''.+
- +
-Well known stories from ''The Nights'' include "[[Aladdin]]," "[[Ali Baba|Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves]]," and "The Seven Voyages of [[Sinbad the Sailor]]." +
- +
-The story was [[Arabian Nights (1974 film)|adapted for film]] by [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] in 1974. +
-== Plot ==+
-[[Shahryar]] (or Schriyar) (meaning king in [[Persian]]), king of an unnamed island "between [[India]] and [[China]]" (in modern editions based on Arab transcripts he is king of India and China), is so shocked by his [[wife's infidelity]] that he kills her and, believing all women to be likewise unfaithful, gives his [[vizier]] (meaning minister in Persian) an order to get him a new wife every night (in some versions, every third night). After spending one night with his bride, the king has her executed at dawn. This practice continues for some time, until the vizier's clever daughter [[Scheherazade ]] (meaning City-born in Persian) forms a plan and volunteers to become Shahryar's next wife. Every night after their marriage, she spends hours telling him stories, each time stopping at dawn with a [[cliffhanger]], so the king will commute the execution out of a desire to hear the rest of the tale. In the end, she has given birth to three sons, and the king has been convinced of her faithfulness.+
-==History and editions==+
-===Early influences===+
-The tales in the collection can be traced to the ancient and medieval Arabic, [[Literature of Egypt|Egyptian]], Persian and [[Indian literature|Indian]] storytelling traditions. Many stories from Indian and Persian folklore parallel the tales as well as [[Jew]]ish sources. These tales were probably in circulation before they were collected and codified into a single collection. This work was further shaped by [[scribes]], [[storyteller]]s, and [[scholar]]s and evolved into a collection of three distinct layers of storytelling by the 15th century:+
- +
-#Persian tales influenced by [[Folklore of India|Indian folklore]] and adapted into Arabic by the 10th century.+
-#Stories recorded in [[Baghdad]] during the 10th century.+
-#Medieval [[Culture of Egypt|Egyptian folklore]].+
- +
-Indian folklore is represented by certain animal stories, which reflect influence from ancient [[Sanskrit literature|Sanskrit fables]]. The influence of the ''[[Panchatantra]]'' and ''[[Baital Pachisi]]'' are particularly notable. ''[[Jataka tales|The Jataka Tales]]'' are a collection of 547 [[Buddhist texts|Buddhist stories]], which are for the most part moral stories with an ethical purpose. ''The Tale of the Bull and the Ass'' and the linked ''Tale of the Merchant and his Wife'' are found in the frame stories of both the ''Jataka'' and the ''Nights''.+
- +
-The influence of the folklore of Baghdad is represented by the tales of the [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid]] [[caliph]]s; the [[Cairo|Cairene]] influence is made evident by ''Maruf the cobbler''. Tales such as ''Iram of the columns'' are based upon the [[Pre-Islamic Arabia|pre-Islamic]] legends of the [[Arabian Peninsula]]; [[Motif (narrative)|motifs]] are employed from the ancient [[Mesopotamia]]n tale, the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]''. Possible [[Greek literature|Greek]] influences have also been noted.+
- +
-===Versions===+
-The first European version of the ''Book of the Thousand and One Nights'' was translated into French by [[Antoine Galland]] from an Arabic text and other sources. This 12-volume book, ''Les Mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français'' ("Thousand and one nights, Arab stories translated into French"), included stories that were not in the original Arabic manuscript. "Aladdin's Lamp" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" appeared first in Galland's translation and cannot be found in any of the original manuscripts. He wrote that he heard them from a [[Demographics of Syria|Syrian]] [[Christian]] storyteller from [[Aleppo]], a [[Maronite]] scholar whom he called "Hanna."+
- +
-Galland's version of the Nights were immensely popular throughout Europe, and later versions of the Nights were written by Galland's publisher using Galland's name without his consent.+
- +
-A well-known English translation is that by [[Sir Richard Francis Burton]], entitled ''The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night'' ([[1885]]). Unlike previous editions his ten-volume translation was not [[bowdlerize]]d. Though printed in the [[Victorian era]] it contained all the erotic nuances of the source material replete with [[sexual]] imagery and [[Pederasty in the Islamic lands|pederastic]] allusions added as appendices to the main stories by Burton. Burton circumvented strict Victorian laws on obscene material by printing a private edition for subscribers only rather than publicly publishing the book. His original ten volumes were followed by a further six entitled ''The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night'', which were printed between 1886 and 1888.+
- +
-Comparing [[Antoine Galland]]'s and [[Sir Richard Francis Burton|Richard Burton]]'s translations, [[Jorge Luis Borges]] wrote:+
- +
-<blockquote>"Another fact is undeniable. The most famous and eloquent [[encomium]]s of ''The Thousand and One Nights'' - by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]], [[Thomas de Quincey]], [[Stendhal]], [[Alfred Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]], [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[Cardinal Newman|Newman]] - are from readers of Galland's translation. Two hundred years and ten better translations have passed, but the man in Europe or the Americas who thinks of the ''Thousand and One Nights'' thinks, invariably of this first translation. The Spanish adjective ''[[milyunanochesco]]'' [thousand-and-one-nights-esque] ... has nothing to do with the [[erudite]] [[Obscenity|obscenities]] of [[Sir Richard Burton|Burton]] or [[J. C. Mardrus|Mardrus]], and everything to do with Antoine Galland's [[bijoux]] and [[sorceries]]." --Jorge Luis Borges, "The Translators of ''The Thousand and One Nights''"+
-</blockquote>+
-===Timeline===+
-Scholars have assembled a timeline concerning the publication history of ''The Nights'':+
- +
-* Oldest Arabic manuscript fragment (a few handwritten pages) from [[Syria]] dating to the early 800s discovered by scholar Nabia Abbott in 1948.+
- +
-* 900s AD &mdash; Mention of ''The Nights'' in [[Ibn Al-Nadim]]'s "Fihrist" (Catalogue of books) in [[Baghdad]]. He mentions the book's history and its Persian origins.+
- +
-* 900s &mdash; Second oldest reference to ''The Nights'' in Muruj Al-Dhahab ([[The Meadows of Gold]]) by Al-[[Masudi]].+
- +
-* 1000s AD &mdash; Mention of the original Arabic name of the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' by [[Qatran Tabrizi]] in the following couplet in [[Persian language|Persian]]:+
-هزار ره صفت هفت خوان و رويين دژ </br>+
-فرو شنيدم و خواندم من از ''هزار افسان'' </br>+
- +
-A thousand times, accounts of ''Rouyin Dezh'' and ''Haft Khān'' </br>+
-I heard and read from ''Hezār Afsān'' (literally Thousand Fables)+
- +
-* 1300s &mdash; Existing Syrian manuscript in the [[Bibliotheque Nationale]] in [[Paris]] (contains about 300 tales).+
- +
-* 1704 &mdash; [[Antoine Galland]]'s French translation is the first European version of ''The Nights''. Later volumes were introduced using Galland's name though the stories were written by unknown persons at the behest of the publisher wanting to capitalize on the popularity of the collection.+
- +
-* 1706 &mdash; An anonymously translated version in English appears in Europe dubbed the "[[Grub Street]]" version.+
- +
-* 1714 &mdash; ''The Thousand and One Days: Persian Tales'' by Ambrose Philips. The earliest English translation with an attributed author.+
-* 1775 &mdash; Egyptian version of ''The Nights'' called "ZER" ([[Hermann Zotenberg]]'s Egyptian Recension) with 200 tales (no surviving edition exists).+
- +
-* 1814 &mdash; Calcutta I, the earliest existing Arabic printed version, is published by the [[British East India Company]]. A second volume was released in 1818. Both had 100 tales each.+
- +
-* 1825-1838 &mdash; The Breslau/Habicht edition is published in [[Arabic]] in 8 volumes. Christian Maxmilian Habicht (born in [[Breslau]], [[Germany]], 1775) collaborated with the Tunisian Murad Al-Najjar and created this edition containing 1001 stories. Using versions of ''The Nights'', tales from Al-Najjar, and other stories from unknown origins Habicht published his version in Arabic and German.+
- +
-* 1842-1843 &mdash; Four additional volumes by Habicht.+
- +
-* 1835 Bulaq version &mdash; These two volumes, printed by the Egyptian government, are the oldest printed (by a publishing house) version of ''The Nights'' in Arabic by a non-European. It is primarily a reprinting of the ZER text.+
- +
-* 1839-1842 &mdash; Calcutta II (4 volumes) is published. It claims to be based on an older Egyptian manuscript (which was never found). This version contains many elements and stories from the Habicht edition.+
- +
-* 1838 &mdash; Torrens version in English.+
- +
-* 1838-1840 &mdash; [[Edward William Lane]] publishes an English translation. Notable for its exclusion of content Lane found "immoral" and for its [[anthropology|anthropological]] notes on Arab customs by Lane.+
- +
-* 1882-1884 &mdash; [[John Payne (poet)|John Payne]] publishes an English version translated entirely from Calcutta II, adding some tales from Calcutta I and Breslau.+
- +
-* 1885-1888 &mdash; [[Richard Francis Burton|Sir Richard Francis Burton]] publishes an English translation from several sources. His version accentuated the sexuality of the stories ''vis-à-vis'' Lane's [[bowdlerized]] translation.+
- +
-* 1889-1904 &mdash; J. C. Mardrus publishes a French version using Bulaq and Calcutta II editions.+
- +
-* 1984 &mdash; Muhsin Mahdi publishes an Arabic translation he says is faithful to the oldest Arabic versions surviving.+
- +
-* 1990s &mdash; [[Husain Haddawy]] publishes an English translation of Mahdi.+
- +
-== Psychpopathological aspects ==+
-[[King Shahryar]] discovers his [[wife's infidelity]] and has her executed, without conscience or recognizing any defect in his own psyche, declaring all women to be unfaithful. He marries a succession of virgins only to have Scheherazade's father, the [[vizier]], execute each one the next morning until finally he comes to [[Scheherazade]] herself, after three years of ordering the death of his brides after each wedding night. Scheherazade survives because she tells the king a story on each of the 1001 nights, which end in a [[cliffhanger]] at dawn. Shahryar's brother had earlier discovered his own first wife in bed with a cook and he butchers them both and then continued a pattern of marriage and murder like Shahryar. +
- +
-The stories in ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' likely began in the oral tradition before the [[fifth century]] [[AD]]. Though Shahrya was not then a stock psychopathic character the ''Book'' and its many characters, has had wide influence on writers, not only in the [[sex]] and [[serial murder]] genre. [[Edgar Allan Poe]], for example wrote "[[A Thousand and Second Night]]", where in the story of Sinbad, Poe's king kills Scheherazade in [[disgust]] at the story she tells him.+
- +
-==Literature==+
-The influence of the versions of the Nights on World Literature is immense. Writers as diverse as [[Henry Fielding]] to [[Naguib Mahfouz]] have alluded to the work by name in their own literature.+
- +
-Examples of this influence include:+
- +
-* [[Alexandre Dumas]] wrote "[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]" in which the protagonist is deeply influenced by the Orient and adopts [[Sinbad the Sailor]] as an alias. +
- +
-* [[Edgar Allan Poe]] wrote a "Thousand and Second Night" as a separate tale, called "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade." It depicts the 8th and final voyage of [[Sinbad the Sailor]], along with the various mysteries Sinbad and his crew encounter; the anomalies are then described as footnotes to the story. While the king is uncertain&mdash;except in the case of the elephants carrying the world on the back of the turtle&mdash;that these mysteries are real, they are actual modern events that occurred in various places during, or before, Poe's lifetime. The story ends with the king in such disgust at the tale Scheherazade has just woven, that he has her executed the very next day.+
- +
-* ''The Nights'' has also inspired poetry in English. Two examples are [[Alfred Tennyson]]'s poem, "Recollections of the Arabian Nights" (1830) and [[William Wordsworth]]'s "[[The Prelude]]" (1805).+
- +
-*''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' has an estranged cousin: ''[[The Manuscript Found in Saragossa]]'', by [[Jan Potocki]]. A [[Poland|Polish]] noble of the late 18th century, he traveled the [[Orient]] looking for an original edition of ''The Nights'', but never found it. Upon returning to Europe, he wrote his masterpiece, a multi-leveled frame tale.+
- +
-* The book is often referenced in numerous works of [[Jorge Luis Borges]].+
- +
-* It also greatly influence famed horror and science fiction writer [[H. P. Lovecraft]] in his early years as a child in which he would imagine himself living the adventures of the heroes in the book. It also inspired him to come up with his famed [[Necronomicon]].+
- +
-==Film and television==+
-There have been many adaptations of ''The Nights'' for both television and cinema.+
- +
-The atmosphere of ''The Nights'' influenced such films as [[Fritz Lang]]'s 1921 ''[[Der müde Tod]]'', the [[1924 in film|1924]] [[Hollywood]] film ''[[The Thief of Bagdad (1924 film)|The Thief of Bagdad]]'' starring [[Douglas Fairbanks]], and its [[1940 in film|1940]] [[United Kingdom|British]] [[The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film)|remake]]. Several stories served as source material for ''[[The Adventures of Prince Achmed]]'' (1926), the first surviving feature-length animated film.+
- +
-One of Hollywood's first feature films to be based on ''The Nights'' was in [[1942 in film|1942]], with the movie called ''Arabian Nights''. It starred [[Maria Montez]] as Scheherazade, [[Sabu Dastagir]] as Ali Ben Ali and [[Jon Hall]] as Harun al-Rashid. The storyline bears virtually no resemblance to the traditional version of the book. In the film, Scheherazade is a dancer who attempts to overthrow Caliph Harun al-Rashid and marry his brother. After Scheherazade’s initial coup attempt fails and she is sold into slavery, many adventures then ensue. Maria Montez and Jon Hall also starred in the [[1944 in film|1944]] film ''[[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves]]''.+
- +
-In 1959 UPA released an animated feature about Mr. Magoo, based on 1001 Arabian Nights.+
- +
-[[Osamu Tezuka]] worked on two (very loose) feature film adaptations, the children's film ''Sinbad no Bōken'' in 1962 and then ''Senya Ichiya Monogatari'' in 1969, an [[adult animation|adult-oriented]] animated feature film.+
- +
-The most commercially successful movie based on ''The Nights'' was ''[[Aladdin (1992 film)|Aladdin]]'', the [[1992 in film|1992]] [[animated]] movie by the [[Walt Disney Company]], which starred the voices of [[Scott Weinger]] and [[Robin Williams]]. The film led to several sequels and a [[Aladdin (television series)|television series]] of the same name.+
- +
-"The Voyages of Sinbad" has been adapted for television and film several times, most recently in the [[2003 in film|2003]] animated feature ''[[Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas]]'', featuring the voices of [[Brad Pitt]] and [[Catherine Zeta-Jones]]. Perhaps the most famous Sinbad film was the [[1958 in film|1958]] movie ''[[The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad]]'', produced by the [[stop-motion]] animation pioneer [[Ray Harryhausen]].+
- +
-A recent well-received television adaptation was the [[Emmy award]]-winning [[miniseries]] ''[[Arabian Nights (miniseries)|Arabian Nights]]'', directed by [[Steve Barron]] and starring [[Mili Avital]] as Scheherazade and [[Dougray Scott]] as Shahryar. It was originally shown over two nights on [[April 30]], and [[May 1]], [[2000 in television|2000]] on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] in the [[United States]] and [[BBC One]] in the [[United Kingdom]]. +
- +
-Other notable versions of ''The Nights'' include the famous [[1974 in film|1974]] [[Italian language|Italian]] movie ''[[Il fiore delle mille e una notte]]'' by [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] and the [[1990 in film|1990]] [[French language|French]] movie ''Les 1001 nuits'', in which [[Catherine Zeta-Jones]] made her debut playing Scheherazade. There are also numerous [[Bollywood]] movies inspired by the book, including ''Aladdin and Sinbad''. In this version the two heroes meet and share in each other's adventures; the djinn of the lamp is female, and Aladdin marries her rather than the princess.+
-==See also==+
-* [[List of stories within One Thousand and One Nights|List of stories from ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'']] (according to the [[Richard Francis Burton]] translation).+
-* [[List of characters within One Thousand and One Nights|List of characters from ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'']]+
-* [[Arabic literature]]+
-* [[Persian literature]]+
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  1. The capital of, and largest city in Iraq, situated in the center of the country on the Tigris river; an ancient city and historical center of the Muslim world.


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