The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13 | Page 4

Book Of The Thousand And One
Nights With Notes Anthropological And Explanatory By Richard F.
Burton VOLUME THREE Privately Printed By The Burton Club To
Henry Edward John, Lord Stanley of Alderley This The Most Innocent
Volume of the Nights is Inscribed by His Old Companion, The Author.

Contents of the Thirteenth Volume.

1. The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam 2. Alaeddin; or, The Wonderful Lamp 3.
Khudadad and His Brothers a. History of the Princess of Daryabar 4.
The Caliph's Night Adventure a. The Story of the Blind Man, Baba
Abdullah b. History of Sidi Nu'uman c. History of Khwajah Hasan
Al-Habbal 5. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves 6. Ali Khwajah and the
Merchant of Baghdad 7. Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu 8. The
Two Sisters Who Envied Their Cadette

APPENDIX: VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES of the Tales in Volume
XIII. By W. A. Clouston.

The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam Alaeddin; or, The Wonderful Lamp
Khudadad and His Brothers The Story of the Blind Man, Baba
Abdullah History of Sisi Nu'uman History of Khwajah Hasan
Al-Habbal Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Ali Khwajah and the
Merchant of Baghdad Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu The Two
Sisters Who Envied Their Cadette
Additional Notes:--
The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam Alaeddin; or, The Wonderful Lamp Ali
Baba and the Forty Thieves Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu

The Translator's Foreword.
The peculiar proceedings of the Curators, Bodleian Library, 1 Oxford,
of which full particulars shall be given in due time, have dislocated the
order of my volumes. The Prospectus had promised that Tome III.
should contain detached extracts from the MS. known as the
Wortley-Montague, and that No. IV. and part of No. V. should
comprise a reproduction of the ten Tales (or eleven, including "The
Princess of Daryßbßr"), which have so long been generally attributed to
Professor Galland. Circumstances, however, wholly beyond my control
have now compelled me to devote the whole of this volume to the
Frenchman's stories.
It will hardly be doubted that for a complete recueil of The Nights a
retranslation of the Gallandian histoires is necessary. The learned
Professor Gustav Weil introduced them all, Germanised literally from
the French, into the Dritter Band of his well-known version--Tausend
und eine Nacht; and not a few readers of Mr. John Payne's admirable
translation (the Villon) complained that they had bought it in order to
see Ali Baba, Aladdin, and others translated into classical English and
that they much regretted the absence of their old favourites.
But the modus operandi was my prime difficulty. I disliked the idea of

an unartistic break or change in the style, ever
"TÔchnat de rendre mien cet air d'antiquitÚ,"
and I aimed at offering to my readers a homogeneous sequel. My first
thought for securing uniformity of treatment was to tender the French
text into Arabic, and then to retranslate it into English. This process,
however, when tried was found wanting; so I made inquiries in all
directions for versions of the Gallandian histories which might have
been published in Persian, Turkish, or Hindustani. Though assisted by
the Prince of London Bibliopoles, Bernard Quaritch, I long failed to
find my want: the vernaculars in Persian and Turkish are translated
direct from the Arabic texts, and all ignore the French stories. At last a
friend, Cameron McDowell, himself well known to the world of letters,
sent me from Bombay a quaint lithograph with quainter illustrations
which contained all I required. This was a version of Totßrßm Shßyßn
(No. III.), which introduced the whole of the Gallandian Tales: better
still, these were sufficiently orientalised and divested of their inordinate
Gallicism, especially their lonesome dialogue, by being converted into
Hindustani, the Urdu Zabßn (camp or court language) of Upper India
and the Lingua Franca of the whole Peninsula.
During one of my sundry visits to the British Museum, I was
introduced by Mr. Alexander G. Ellis to Mr. James F. Blumhardt, of
Cambridge, who pointed out to me two other independent versions, one
partly rhymed and partly in prose.
Thus far my work was done for me. Mr. Blumhardt, a practical
Orientalist and teacher of the modem Prakrit tongues, kindly undertook,
at my request, to English the Hindustani, collating at the same time, the
rival versions; and thus, at a moment when my health was at its worst,
he saved me all trouble and labour except that of impressing the
manner with my own sign manual, and of illustrating the text, where
required, with notes anthropological and other.
Meanwhile, part of my plan was modified by a visit to Paris in early
1887. At the BibliothÞque Nationale I had the pleasure of meeting M.
Hermann Zotenberg, keeper of Eastern manuscripts, an Orientalist of

high and varied talents, and especially famous for his admirable
Chronique