Edward William Lane (1801–1876)

Volume 3 was awfuler (I told you my thesaurus broke), than volume 2. I held out for one hope amidst the despair: maybe the story of Sinbad the Sailor would be interesting. Boy, was I wrong, and everything else was far worse. First of all, Sinbad is just as morally bankrupt as anyone else in the book. He beats women to death? What is that? Also, he's an idiot. After shipwreck #5, man, just give up. This ain't your line of work. As for the ending, I cared not a whit for it. Scheherazade is show more saved. Yay, big deal. Where's the mercy for the hundreds of others murdered in the book? As if we're supposed to have a great feeling that she survives. It was like an action movie where millions die in a nuclear holocaust, but yay! The action hero and his lover survive! Whoop-de-do. show less

The intermingling of one story within another is one of the defining features of the Arabian Nights, or the One Thousand and One Nights, depending on which title we use. Though many editions and translations differ in how many and which stories they include, this is a relatively long edition at over 700 pages of small type, consisting of around 50 stories, depending on how you count them. The collection of stories that make up the Arabian Nights spans an undefined period of history and show more geography, though many of them are certainly pre-Islamic in origin, ancient Persian or Indian for example, though the bulk were collected together during the Islamic golden age in the region of Baghdad or Basra in Iraq, which themselves feature as locations for several of the stories. The longer stories of Aladdin, Sinbad, and Ali Baba are not thought to have belonged to the original collection, and were added in by the first European translator in the 18th Century, having possibly a Syrian source.
This version is based on the translation by E.W. Lane published in the 1840s. Lane's translation is most distinctive from the other translations such as Burton's for its exclusion of adult humour and sexual themes, which were a major part of some of the original stories but not popular with the Victorians. However we are still treated to plenty of beheadings and dismemberments so it's still not exactly a children's version.
The stories themselves are of interest as a window onto Middle Eastern folklore, historical culture and manners, religion and superstition, symbolism, and the mingling of disparate cultures, classes and characters. The plots are often inventive and at other times repetitious and predictable. There is a great mixture of different types of story, from Gothic horror to morality tales, comedy, and tales of action and adventure.
As a work in its totality this does not have the cohesion of something written by a single writer with a unified vision. However such a work would not, and could not benefit from the richness and number of ancient cultures that have mingled to produce this hodge-podge of entertaining tales. If we take it for what it is, then what we have is something of interest for many reasons, not least of which is its entertainment value as a group of fantastic stories with a lot of character and exotic colour. show less

Throw away Hans Wehr, sell your bed, and buy Lane's lexicon. Wait, keep your bed—there are searchable versions online.

Lane lived in Egypt for a long time and showed great interest in the culture. Written in the second quarter of the 19th century, this book gives an overview of a complex Islamic culture.