The Arabian Nights
Arabian Nights, The,also known as The Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: alf laila wa‐laila), originally a collection of oriental tales in the Arabic language that developed into a powerful vehicle for Western imaginative prose since the early 18th century (see oriental fairy tales). The collection has a long and convoluted history which mirrors its complex narrative structure; one amazing story evokes another, so that the reader is drawn into a narrative whirlpool. The development of the Nights from the oriental oral and literary traditions of the Middle Ages into a classical work for Western readers is a fascinating one. The notebook of a Jewish book dealer from Cairo around the year 1150 contains the first documentary evidence for the Arabic title. The oldest preserved manuscripts, comprising a core corpus of about 270 nights, appear to date from the 15th century. The tales in the collection...
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