Tales from the Thousand and One Nights

A superb and unexpurgated translation of the finest and best known of the Tales.

Originating from India, Persia and Arabia, the Tales from the Thousand and One Nights represent the lively expression of a lay and secular imagination in revolt against religious austerity and zeal in Oriental literature. They depict a fabulous and fanciful world of jinns and sorcerers, but their bawdiness, realism and variety of subject matter also firmly anchor them to everyday life. In this volume the translator has caught the freshness and spontaneity of the stories – which, although imaginative and extravagant, are a faithful mirror of medieval Islam.