Arabian Nights Illustrated

Inspired by tales of Sinbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba, and other exotic characters, this original collection features more than 185 color and black-and-white images by acclaimed artists from the Golden Age of Illustration.

This is a gloriously illustrated collection of the most enchanting stories from 'The Thousand and One Nights', in a luxurious, traditional cloth binding. From the adventures of Sinbad and Aladdin, to tales of genies and magical lands, children will be enchanted by these stories of magic and wonder.

Retells the stories told by Scheherazade to amuse the sultan so that she would not be executed.

“[A]n electric new translation . . . Each page is adorned with illustrations and photographs from other translations and adaptations of the tales, as well as a wonderfully detailed cascade of notes that illuminate the stories and their settings. . . . The most striking feature of the Arabic tales is their shifting registers—prose, rhymed prose, poetry—and Seale captures the movement between them beautifully.” —Yasmine Al-Sayyad, New Yorker A magnificent and richly illustrated volume—with a groundbreaking translation framed by new commentary and hundreds of images—of the most famous story collection of all time. A cornerstone of world literature and a monument to the power of storytelling, the Arabian Nights has inspired countless authors, from Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe to Naguib Mahfouz, Clarice Lispector, and Angela Carter. Now, in this lavishly designed and illustrated edition of The Annotated Arabian Nights, the acclaimed literary historian Paulo Lemos Horta and the brilliant poet and translator Yasmine Seale present a splendid new selection of tales from the Nights, featuring treasured original stories as well as later additions including “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” and definitively bringing the Nights out of Victorian antiquarianism and into the twenty-first century. For centuries, readers have been haunted by the homicidal King Shahriyar, thrilled by gripping tales of Sinbad’s seafaring adventures, and held utterly, exquisitely captive by Shahrazad’s stories of passionate romances and otherworldly escapades. Yet for too long, the English-speaking world has relied on dated translations by Richard Burton, Edward Lane, and other nineteenth-century adventurers. Seale’s distinctly contemporary and lyrical translations break decisively with this masculine dynasty, finally stripping away the deliberate exoticism of Orientalist renderings while reclaiming the vitality and delight of the stories, as she works with equal skill in both Arabic and French. Included within are famous tales, from “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor” to “The Story of the Fisherman and the Jinni,” as well as lesser-known stories such as “The Story of Dalila the Crafty,” in which the cunning heroine takes readers into the everyday life of merchants and shopkeepers in a crowded metropolis, and “The Story of the Merchant and the Jinni,” an example of a ransom frame tale in which stories are exchanged to save a life. Grounded in the latest scholarship, The Annotated Arabian Nights also incorporates the Hanna Diyab stories, for centuries seen as French forgeries but now acknowledged, largely as a result of Horta’s pathbreaking research, as being firmly rooted in the Arabic narrative tradition. Horta not only takes us into the astonishing twists and turns of the stories’ evolution. He also offers comprehensive notes on just about everything readers need to know to appreciate the tales in context, and guides us through the origins of ghouls, jinn, and other supernatural elements that have always drawn in and delighted readers. Beautifully illustrated throughout with art from Europe and the Arab and Persian world, the latter often ignored in English-language editions, The Annotated Arabian Nights expands the visual dimensions of the stories, revealing how the Nights have always been—and still are—in dialogue with fine artists. With a poignant autobiographical foreword from best-selling novelist Omar El Akkad and an illuminating afterword on the Middle Eastern roots of Hanna Diyab’s tales from noted scholar Robert Irwin, Horta and Seale have created a stunning edition of the Arabian Nights that will enchant and inform both devoted and novice readers alike.

Rediscover the legends of Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sinbad, and more in this Scribner Illustrated Classic keepsake complemented by the stunning art of Maxfield Parrish. This stunning volume of twelve stories adapted from Tales of a Thousand and One Nights features Maxfield Parrish’s gorgeous art, bringing a beloved classic to a whole new generation of readers.

From Lebanese writer Wafa' Tarnowska and Spanish artist Carole Hénaff, this magnificent new edition of The Arabian Nights brings together famous and less familiar tales from A Thousand and One Nights and includes the frame story of Shahrazade and Shahriyar.

This is W. H. D. Rouse's 1863 English-language translation of "One Thousand and One Nights", a collection of South Asian and Middle Eastern folk tales compiled during the Islamic Golden Age. It was anthologised over hundreds of years by a variety of scholars, authors, and translators across Asia and North Africa, with the stories having roots in medieval Persian, Arabic, Mesopotamian, Jewish, Indian, and Egyptian folklore. Exquisitely illustrated by W. H. D. Rouse, this classic collection would make for perfect bedtime reading material and is not to be missed by lovers of folklore and classic fairy tales. Walter Stanley Paget (1863-1935) was an English artist and illustrator whose fantastic work adorned books and magazines in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century London. Other notable works illustrated by Paget include: "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1891-93), "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1902), and "Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study" (1968). The stories in this collection include: "Sinbad the Sailor", "Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves", "The Story of King Shahriar and Sheherazade", "The Story of the Fisherman and the Genie", "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp", "The Enchanted Horse", "The Little Hunchback", "The Story of Ali Cogia, Merchant of Bagdad", "The Story of the Vizir who was Punished", "The Story of the Husband and the Parrot", and many more. Pook Press celebrates the great 'Golden Age of Illustration' in children's literature - a period of unparalleled excellence in book illustration. We publish rare and vintage classic illustrated books, in high-quality colour editions, so that the masterful artwork and story-telling can continue to delight both young and old.