The Arabian Nights | Page 3

addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book or any other
medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all other references to Project
Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove,
alter or modify the etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, if you wish,
distribute this etext in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary
form, including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or hypertext
software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters
other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and
underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and
additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII,
EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for
instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense,
a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent
proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits you derive
calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association / Illinois Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each date you
prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax
return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning machines, OCR
software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of
contribution you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association /
Illinois Benedictine College".
This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney Internet
([email protected]); TEL: (212-254-5093) *END*THE SMALL PRINT!
FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Selected and Edited by Andrew Lang
after the edition of Longmans, Green and Co, 1918 (1898)

Preface
The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places
tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The
children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days.
Hector's little boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew
them, and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses.
People in different countries tell them differently, but they are always the same stories,
really, whether among little Zulus, at the Cape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The
changes are only in matters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not,
meeting lions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold countries.
There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales, just because long ago there were
plenty of kings in the country. A gentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of
king in Scotland in very old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, never
forgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly in this century, in all
sorts of languages. These ancient stories are the contents of the Fairy books.
Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are given in this volume,
are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia, Arabia, and Persia told them in their
own way, not for children, but for grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any
printed books, of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse men
and women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, and made the characters
good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. The events were often supposed to
happen in the reign of the great Caliph, or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who
lived in Bagdad in 786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real
person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death by the Caliph in a very
cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories must have been told in their present shape
a good long