The Arabian Nights | 
| Creator: Husain Haddawy
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $10.54
You Save: $7.41 (41%)
New (21) Used (6) from $10.54
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 7135
Media: Paperback
Edition: De Luxe Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0393331660
Dewey Decimal Number: 398.22
EAN: 9780393331660
ASIN: 0393331660
Publication Date: May 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Now as sumptuously packaged as it is critically acclaimed—a new deluxe trade paperback edition of the beloved stories.
Husain Haddawy's rapturously received translation of The Arabian Nights is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. These stories (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories), told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse, first reached the West around 1700. They fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it. Collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from vivacious erotica, animal fables, and adventure fantasies to pointed Sufi tales, the stories of The Arabian Nights provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory.
The present new translation by Husain Haddawy is of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and is considered to be the most authentic. This early version is without the embellishments and additions that appear in later Indian and Egyptian manuscripts, on which all previous English translations were based.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
Beautiful and affordable! January 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was more than what I expected...a very attractive appearance, without breaking the bank. It was purchased as a gift, and he is ecstatic about it!!
 So far very good, not for kids though August 27, 2007
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
I have been reading this to my 8 yr old and changing or leaving out the inappropriate parts. She loves to hear it, and with the cliff hangers she is always asking for another chapter.
Excellent Translation May 16, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Excellent translation, from the oldest known manuscript of the tales. True to the original, it captures not just the letter, but the spirit of the text. Clearly, Haddawy is a talented writer on his own accord.
A very good place to discover Arab culture as well.
Arabian Nights January 16, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
As I took a trip to Egypt over the new year, I thought it fitting that I should read books pertaining to the culture there. So I picked up this authoritative copy of Arabian Nights from the library and took it with me for some reading.
This edition is followed by a second edition that includes the better-known stories (including Aladdin and Sinbad). I didn't recognize any of the stories in this edition. Granted, I didn't read every story.
I think the trouble with getting together an "authoritative text" on the Arabian Nights is that the stories were never meant to be compiled into a book and read straight through. The stories were part of a rich oral culture that involved sitting around a fire with fine musical instruments, good food, great company and a storyteller who could draw in extra details and add in any embellishments that he thought the crowd would appreciate. Meaning- you never really heard the same story twice.
All of this is lost in a print copy. The stories begin to seem repetitive (which they wouldn't, if they were told over the course of a few years by a traveling storyteller) and the language becomes onerous- every section begins and ends with the same two phrases over and over, again and again.
However, the stories are a lot of fun :-) If you're interested in the Arabian Nights, I would certainly recommend this edition- Haddawy does well in his translation. But I'd also only read a story or two here and there, so that you don't become tired of the book. That way, the magic will still hit you. Or maybe, you can become the storyteller and read it aloud to someone else- it would probably be excellent in that form as well!
Handcrafted Quality July 12, 2006
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
They don't make books like they used to - or, so i thought, until i bought this elegant edition of The Arabian nights. Beautifully bound, printed on high-quality paper, with an erudite introduction, and clear, but stylish font, I thought how appropriate for the publisher to release a classic such as The Arabian nights in such a 'classic' style, hearkening back to a time when great care was put into published books.
Congratulations on a great edition.
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