The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 14 | Page 4

Printed By The Burton Club To
William H. Chandler, Esq,. Pembroke College, Oxford. My Dear Mr.
Chandler,
As without your friendly and generous aid this volume could never
have seen the light, I cannot resist the temptation of inscribing it to
you–and without permission, for your modesty would have refused any
such acknowledgment.
I am, ever, Yours sincerely, Richard F. Burton.
Trieste, March 10th, 1888.

Contents of the Fourteenth Volume.

1. Story of the Sultan of Al-Yaman and His Three Sons 2. Story of the
Three Sharpers a. The Sultan Who Fared Forth in the Habit of a
Darwaysh b. History of Mohammed, Sultan of Cairo c. Story of the
First Lunatic d. Story of the Second Lunatic e. Story of the Sage and

the Scholar f. The Night-Adventure of Sultan Mohammed of Cairo
with the Three Foolish Schoolmasters g. Story of the Broke-Back
Schoolmaster h. Story of the Split-Mouthed Schoolmaster i. Story of
the Limping Schoolmaster j. Story of the Three Sisters and Their
Mother the Sultanah 3. History of the Kazi Who Bare a Babe 4. Tale of
the Kazi and the Bhang-Eater a. History of the Bhang-Eater and His
Wife b. How Drummer Abu Kasim Became a Kazi c. Story of the Kazi
and His Slipper d. Tale of Mahmud the Persian and the Kurd Sharper e.
Tale of the Sultan and the Poor Man Who Brought To Him Fruit f. The
Fruit-Seller's Tale g. Tale of the Sultan and His Three Sons and the
Enchanting Bird h. Adventure of the Fruit-Seller and the Concubine i.
Story of the King of Al-Yaman and His Three Sons and the Enchanting
Bird j. History of the First Larrikin k. History of the Second Larrikin l.
History of the Third Larrikin m. Story of a Sultan of Al-Hind and His
Son Mohammed n. Tale of the Fisherman and His Son o. Tale of the
Third Larrikin Concerning Himself 5. History of Abu Niyyah and Abu
Niyyatayn Appendix A: - Ineptiæ Bodleianæ Appendix B: - The Three
Untranslated Tales in Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's "Forty Vezirs"

The Translator's Foreword.
As my first and second volumes (Supplemental) were composed of
translated extracts from the Breslau Edition of The Nights, so this tome
and its successor (vols. iv. and v.) comprise my version from the
(Edward) Wortley Montague Codex immured in the old Bodleian
Library, Oxford.
Absence from England prevents for the present my offering a
satisfactory description of this widely known manuscript; but I may
safely promise that the hiatus shall be filled up in vol. v., which is now
ready for the press.
The contents of the Wortley Montague text are not wholly unfamiliar to
Europe. In 1811 Jonathan Scott, LL.D. Oxon. (for whom see my vols. i.,
ix. and x. 434), printed with Longmans and Co. his "Arabian Nights
Entertainments" in five substantial volumes 8vo, and devoted a sixth

and last to excerpts entitled
TALES SELECTED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT COPY OF THE
1001 NIGHTS BROUGHT TO EUROPE BY EDWARD WORTLEY
MONTAGUE, ESQ. Translated from the Arabic BY JONATHAN
SCOTT, LL.D.
Unfortunately for his readers Scott enrolled himself amongst the
acolytes of Professor Galland, a great and original genius in the line
Raconteur, and a practical Orientalist whose bright example was
destined to produce disastrous consequences. The Frenchman, however
unscrupulous he might have been about casting down and building up
in order to humour the dead level of Gallican bon goût, could, as is
shown by his "Aladdin," trans- late literatim and verbatim when the
story-stuff is of the right species and acceptable to the average
European taste. But, as generally happens in such cases, his servile
suite went far beyond their master and model. Petis de la Croix
("Persian and Turkish Tales"), Chavis and Cazotte ("New Arabian
Nights"), Dow ("Ináyatu llah") and Morell ("Tales of the Genii"), with
others manifold whose names are now all but forgotten, carried out the
Gallandian liberties to the extreme of licence and succeeded in
producing a branchlet of literature, the most vapid, frigid and insipid
that can be imagined by man,--a bastard Europeo-Oriental,
pseudo-Eastern world of Western marionettes garbed in the gear which
Asiatic are (or were) supposed to wear, with sentiments and opinions,
manners and morals to match; the whole utterly lacking life, local
colour, vraisemblance, human interest. From such abortions, such
monstrous births, libera nos, Domine!
And Scott out-gallanded Galland:--
Diruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.
It is hard to quote a line which he deigned textually to translate. He not
only commits felony on the original by abstracting whole sentences and
pages ad libitum, but he also thrusts false goods into his author's pocket
and patronises the unfortunate Eastern story-teller by foisting upon him
whatever he, the "translator and traitor," deems needful. On this point

no more need be said: the