Arabian Tales - 1001 Nights
This is a digitally generated rendition of the original text published in 1885 by Sir Richard Francis Burton as:
"A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Now
Entitulated The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night,
With Introductory Explanatory Notes on the Manners and Customs of Moslem Men,
and a Terminal Essay upon the History of the Nights"
volumes 1 to 10 and of the subsequent "Supplemental Nights" volumes 1 to 6 completed
in 1888.
This version is modelled on a 1903 Burton Club edition and is as nearly as
possible identical to it.
The omissions applied, are largely to passages in response to criticism of the
day, now largely irrelevant
The extensive notes are of such a range that they would almost constitute a work by themselves. Through them transpires the depth of Burton's comprehension and affection for the Moslem and indeed Eastern world of that time, its language, its customs and of the fantasies that the tales engendered in the audience.
Controversy has surrounded this work, some due to censoriousness occasioned
by descriptions of sexual encounters in the tales themselves - mild stuff by
modern standards, some occasioned by Burton's hobbyhorse descriptions of sexual
mores, diversities, and aberrations in his notes, and some raised by scholars
who object to the flavour of the language which Burton's translation imposes
on his characters, possibly feeling that it denotes a paternalistic imperialistic
attitude.
It would be difficult to defend Burton from this accusation or indeed almost
all britons of that day.
For the rest one can only observe that works of art have their own rules and
it must be difficult to deny that this is such.
Notes on the material:
These books were recreated from print copies and from scans of original works.
The intention has been to recreate in text form (rather than scan image form)
the original works.
The aim has been to reproduce the originals in printable form as nearly exact
copies of the original.
This entailed retaining the same page breaks and page numbering.
(Some page breaks are moved a few words forward or back on account of differences
in editor character size and form in respect to original
and also in the attept to keep footnotes entire within the same page as the
referral.)
The downloads are in two forms: PDF and MS Word DOC format ( the Word version
is Word 6).
The PDF is a manner of seeing a document in the exact form in which it would
be printed.
DOC is an editing format whose aspect depends on many factors (paper size, margins,
styles, default printers, etc. and not least the editor used).
Thus when PDF is viewed, what is presented is what was intended to be printed.
When DOC is viewed what is presented is affected by many variables. Some of
these are preset (but alterable) in the document itself, but others are in the
domain of the tool used and its settings.
Among the effects, may be incompatibilities in page breaking, footnote rendering,
font usage etc.
The (DOC) form is made available to enable any editing, searching, or extraction of segments that may be desired.
Print Version:
These are available from the link in the home page.
In these, volumes 11 and 12 are joined.
The supplier is Italian and
so is the site.
A search box is available in the top right of the page. Entering "Burton
Arabian" will show pages in which one may order the individual volumes.
Hoping to have provided material of value:
Armando Malagodi. - 2017 - www.thousandnightsandone.com - agm@malagodi.com.