The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights (Mass Market Paperback)

I think it's better to buy the Paperback edition to get all 1001 nights, or what we Arabs call it "Alf Laila wa Laila".

Captain Burton's translation remains contested amongst scholars for its subjective indulgement and commentary (among other things). Nevertheless, his was a critical and monumental 16-volume endeavor that brought to the English world the legendary tales Shahrazad told King Shahryar--who exectued his mistresses after one night so as to preserve fidelity--in order to remain alive. It proved the most comprhensive and entertaining, and stands as the definitive translation for many.

But why should you bother with Burton, when you could go with Lane or Galland? As a reader, if your desire is to fully experience these tales as closely as possible in capturing that sense of adventure, excitement, of magic and morality that has fascinated imaginations for centuries, Burton's "plain literal translation" certainly dazzles and entertains, vividly, powerfully, without disappointment. You shall be drawn into the world of the thousand nights and a night, of Islam and Jinns, through Burton's archaic though eloquent diction--a part of the veil of fantasy--and his ample knowledge of Middle Eastern culture.
The present edition offers a vital, "representative" selection of these neatly woven and intertwining tales in one volume.

* Note: This can be fun, very enjoyable reading with patience, but the lack of paragraph breaks and the language may prove challenging for some.
Also: the hardcover is definitely a better choice, as it has placed the selected footnotes on the bottom of the page they appear on rather than the back of the book - like the paperback.

This is undoubtly a faithful edition of the "Nights" and A.S. Byatt's introduction is almost worth the cost of the paperback, but did any single reader at Random House try this as a member of the general public? I bet not. The reading experience is crushed under the weight and volume of Burton's notes. While quite a few of the notes provide good anthropological and lingistic background, many are of the "I,m right, he's wrong" academic in-fighting variety. The sheer volume alone, 121 multi-line notes in the 76 page "The Porter and the Three Ladies of Bagdad" tale cause the reader to easily lose the thread and narritive power of any story. The fact that all the notes are grouped and numbered individually by tale means you spend a considerable amount of your reading time flipping through pages at the end of the book looking for the particular tale you are in and then the specific note. I ended up having a bookmark for my progress through the "Nights" and another one to find my way through Burton's notes. But it was still not enough. Sometimes there were six lengthy notes to a single page of text. Editor: If you are going to do that, remember the footnote? It sits at the foot of the page as a convenience for the reader.

Burton, himself, is quite fasinating. I highly recomend "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton" by Edward Rice and "The White Nile" by Alan Moorehead, but for now I'll give this "Nights" a pass.