A 1001 Nights

Sons of the Sultan of the Indies in the street with scimitars. From the painting A Tale of a 1001 Nights (1873) by Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger.
A 1001 Nights is a much-beloved collection of stories from the Middle East and India. The framing device of the whole collection is Scheherazade, a king’s bride who tells a series of tales to save herself from execution. Included in several of the stories are the characters themselves telling their own story, so it features a story-within-a-story. The tales aren’t from one specific area, but originate from a variety of places including India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia.

Andrew Lang photographed in 1901 for The Critic: An Illustrated Monthly Review of Literature, Art and Life.
There are many versions of the story collection for readers. Researchers believe the tales date back to the 8th century and one of the earliest fragments was discovered by a scholar named Nabia Abbott in 1948. The first English edition of A 1001 Nights was published around 1706. Named The Arabian Nights Entertainments, the collection introduced English readers to the now-familiar tales of Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin. When folklorist Andrew Lang had an English version of the stories published in 1898, he named it The Arabian Nights Entertainments. In the introduction of this edition, Lang writes about how his own books of fairy tales (The Color Fairy book series) feature tales for children, but A 1001 Nights was more for adults, with events supposed to be set 786-808 A.D. His own version is translated from the French edition Les mille et une nuits by Monsieur Galland. Published from 1704 to 1717, Galland’s version spanned 12 volumes, plus featured new tales of the heroics of Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin.
Fairy tales by A 1001 Nights
- The Adventures of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura
- The Arabian Nights
- Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
- The Adventures of Haroun-al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad
- The Story of Sidi-Nouman
- The Story of the Blind Baba-Abdalla
- The Story of Ali Cogia, Merchant of Bagdad
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The Third Voyage
- The Story of the Barber's Sixth Brother
- The Story of the Barber's Fifth Brother
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The Seventh and Final Voyage
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The Sixth Voyage
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The Fifth Voyage
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The Fourth Voyage
- The Story of the Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The Second Voyage
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: The First Voyage
- The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor
- The Story of the Third Calender, Son of a King
- The Story of the Envious Man and of Him Who Was Envied
- The Story of the Second Calender, Son of a King
- The Story of the First Calender, Son of a King
- The Story of the Three Calenders, Sons of Kings, and of Five Ladies of Bagdad
- The Story of the Young King of the Black Isles
- The Story of the Vizir Who Was Punished
- The Story of the Husband and the Parrot
- The Story of the Greek King and the Physician Douban
- The Story of the Fisherman
- The Story of the Second Old Man, and the Two Black Dogs
- The Story of the First Old Man and of the Hind
- The Story of the Merchant and the Genius