London Printed For Subscribers Only
1901
Delhi Edition Contents of The First Volume.
Introduction.Story of King Shehriyar and his Brother a. Story of the Ox and the Ass PREFATORY NOTE.
The present isI believethe first complete translation of the great Arabic compendium of romantic fiction that has been attempted in any European language comprising about four times as much matter as that of Galland and three times as much as that of any other translator known to myself；and a short statement of the sources from which it is derived may therefore be acceptable to my readers. Three printed editionsmore or less complete，exist of the Arabic text of the Thousand and One Nights；namely，those of BreslauBoulac （Cairo） and Calcutta （1839）besides an incomplete onecomprising the first two hundred nights only，published at Calcutta in 1814. Of thesethe first is horribly corrupt and greatly inferiorboth in style and completenessto the othersand the second （that of Boulac） is alsothough in a far less degreeincompletewhole stories （asfor instance，that of the Envier and the Envied in the present volume） being omitted and hiatusesvarying in extent from a few lines to several pagesbeing of frequent occurrencewhilst in addition to these defectsthe editora learned Egyptianhas played havoc with the style of his originalin an ill-judged attempt to improve itproducing a medleymore curious than edifyingof classical and semi-modern diction and now and thenin his unlucky zealcompletely disguising the pristine meaning of certain passages. The third editionthat which we owe to Sir William Macnaghten and which appears to have been printed from a superior copy of the manu followed by the Egyptian editor，is by far the most carefully printed and edited of the three and offerson the wholethe least corrupt and most comprehensive text of the work. I have therefore adopted it as my standard or basis of translation and haveto the best of my powerremedied the defects （such as hiatusesmisprintsdoubtful or corrupt passagesetc.） which are of no infrequent occurrence even in thisthe best of the existing textsby carefully collating it with the editions of Boulac and Breslau （to say nothing of occasional references to the earlier Calcutta edition of the first two hundred nights）adopting from one and the other such variantsadditions and corrections as seemed to me best calculated to improve the general effect and most homogeneous with the general spirit of the workand this so freely that the present version may be saidin great partto represent a variorum text of the originalformed by a collation of the different printed texts；and no proper estimate cantherefore，be made of the fidelity of the translationexcept by those who are intimately acquainted with the whole of these latter. Even with the help of the new lights gained by the laborious process of collation and comparison above mentionedthe exact sense of many passages must still remain doubtfulso corrupt are the extant texts and so incomplete our knowledgeas incorporated in dictionariesetcof the peculiar dialecthalf classical and half modernin which the original work is written.
One special feature of the present version is the appearance，for the first timein English metrical shapepreserving the external form and rhyme movement of the originalsof the whole of the poetry with which the Arabic text is so freely interspersed. This great body of verseequivalent to at least ten thousand twelve-syllable English linesis of the most unequal qualityvarying from poetry worthy of the name to the merest doggreland as I havein pursuance of my original scheme，elected to translate everythinggood and bad （with a very few exceptions in cases of manifest mistake or misapplication）I can only hope that my readers willin judging of my successtake into consideration the enormous difficulties with which I have had to contend and look with indulgence upon my efforts to render，under unusually irksome conditionsthe energy and beauty of the originalwhere these qualities existand in their absenceto keep my version from degenerating into absolute doggrel.