Other editions of book The Arabian Nights Entertainments By Andrew Lang

*ILLUSTRATED EDITIONA collection of 26 tales told by Scheherazade to save herself and other young girls from death at the Sultan's hands.The story of the merchant and the genius --The story of the first old man and of the hind --The story of the second old man and of the two black dogs --The story of the fisherman --The story of the Greek king and the physician Douban --The story of the husband and the parrot --The story of the vizir who was punished --The story of the young king of the black isles --

This is a story from the Tales from the Arabian Nights collection. Toby Stephens takes us back to the world of cunning, adventure, mishap, and fun. Sheherezade, night after night, weaves her tales, and Aladdin and his Magic Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and other tales come alive. The unforgettable music of Rimsky-Korsakov sets the scene perfectly. A delightful treat for young listeners.

The Arabian Nights Entertainments is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, and South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish, and Egyptian folklore and literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hazar Afsan, which in turn relied partly on Indian elements. What is common throughout all the editions of the Nights is the initial frame story of the ruler Shahryar and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves.

Many of us probably know the “The Arabian Nights Entertainments”, a story within a story which fascinated readers from all over the world for centuries.The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang is a version of the classic story, adapted to younger readers, thus missing the adult side with the woman who tells erotic stories to the king, in order to keep him interested and wanting to hear more, so that she can be allowed to live another day.Andrew Lang creates a collection of random stories suitable to be read to or by very young people. They are the same old fairytales of the East that people of Arabia and Persia told in their own way. They have been based on the reality of their time, speaking about historical characters such as the Caliph Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad, between 786-808 A.D. or his vizier. Andrew Lang tried to eliminate the dull and stupid content added to the stories throughout the time; in his book, he shortened some of the tales and omitted pieces suitable for Arabs only. The original Arabian Nights is really vast and it seems that what we know is just a part of the stories. Andrew Lang translated the stories chosen for his collection using the version translated into French by Monsieur Galland – the first in Europe. Since the origin of the stories is unclear, some people even believed that Galland may actually have invented some of them himself, but this is only a speculation.The stories in Lang's collection are on various topics: mythology, destiny, burlesque, love, comedy and even horror and fantasy. They do not serve only for entertainment, but also for didactic purpose, considering that they include life lessons and are able to stimulate the mind of the readers.

The Arabian Nights Entertainments In the chronicles of the ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, who reigned for about four hundred years, from Persia to the borders of China, beyond the great river Ganges itself, we read the praises of one of the kings of this race, who was said to be the best monarch of his time. His subjects loved him, and his neighbors feared him, and when he died he left his kingdom in a more prosperous and powerful condition than any king had done before him. The two sons who survived him loved each other tenderly, and it was a real grief to the elder, Schahriar, that the laws of the empire forbade him to share his dominions with his brother Schahzeman. Indeed, after ten years, during which this state of things had not ceased to trouble him, Schahriar cut off the country of Great Tartary from the Persian Empire and made his brother king. Now the Sultan Schahriar had a wife whom he loved more than all the world, and his greatest happiness was to surround her with splendour, and to give her the finest dresses and the most beautiful jewels. It was therefore with the deepest shame and sorrow that he accidentally discovered, after several years, that she had deceived him completely, and her whole conduct turned out to have been so bad, that he felt himself obliged to carry out the law of the land, and order the grand-vizir to put her to death. The blow was so heavy that his mind almost gave way, and he declared that he was quite sure that at bottom all women were as wicked as the sultana, if you could only find them out, and that the fewer the world contained the better. So every evening he married a fresh wife and had her strangled the following morning before the grand-vizir, whose duty it was to provide these unhappy brides for the Sultan. The poor man fulfilled h

In the chronicles of the ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, who reigned for about four hundred years, from Persia to the borders of China, beyond the great river Ganges itself, we read the praises of one of the kings of this race, who was said to be the best monarch of his time. His subjects loved him, and his neighbors feared him, and when he died he left his kingdom in a more prosperous and powerful condition than any king had done before him. The two sons who survived him loved each other tenderly, and it was a real grief to the elder, Schahriar, that the laws of the empire forbade him to share his dominions with his brother Schahzeman. Indeed, after ten years, during which this state of things had not ceased to trouble him, Schahriar cut off the country of Great Tartary from the Persian Empire and made his brother king.

The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them, and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses.People in different countries tell them differently, but they are always the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at the Cape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only in matters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meeting lions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold countries. There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales, just because long ago there were plenty of kings in the country. A gentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of king in Scotland in very old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, never forgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly in this century, in all sorts of languages. These ancient stories are the contents of the Fairy books.Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are given in this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia, Arabia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, but for grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books, of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse men and women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, and made the characters good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. The events were often supposed to happen in the reign of the great Caliph, or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in 786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death by the Caliph in a very cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories must have been told in their present shape a good long while after the Caliph died, when nobody knew very exactly what had really happened. At last some storyteller thought of writing down the tales, and fixing them into a kind of framework, as if they had all been narrated to a cruel Sultan by his wife. Probably the tales were written down about the time when Edward I. was fighting Robert Bruce. But changes were made in them at different times, and a great deal that is very dull and stupid was put in, and plenty of verses. Neither the verses nor the dull pieces are given in this book.People in France and England knew almost nothing about "The Arabian Nights" till the reigns of Queen Anne and George I., when they were translated into French by Monsieur Galland. Grown-up people were then very fond of fairy tales, and they thought these Arab stories the best that they had ever read. They were delighted with Ghouls (who lived among the tombs) and Geni, who seemed to be a kind of ogres, and with Princesses who work magic spells, and with Peris, who are Arab fairies. Sindbad had adventures which perhaps came out of the Odyssey of Homer; in fact, all the East had contributed its wonders, and sent them to Europe in one parcel. Young men once made a noise at Monsieur Galland's windows in the dead of night, and asked him to tell them one of his marvellous tales. Nobody talked of anything but dervishes and vizirs, rocs and peris. The stories were translated from French into all languages, and only Bishop Atterbury complained that the tales were not likely to be true, and had no moral. The bishop was presently banished for being on the side of Prince Charlie's father, and had leisure to repent of being so solemn.

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books are a series of twenty-five collections of true and fictional stories for children, published between 1889 and 1913. The best known books of the series are the twelve collections of fairy tales, known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors. In all, the volumes feature 798 stories, besides the 153 poems in The Blue Poetry Book. The Arabian Nights' Entertainments contains thirty-four stories from the Arabian Nights, adapted for children. The story of Aladdin is in this volume as well as in the Blue Fairy Book. Stories Included Within This Book: The Arabian Nights The Story of the Merchant and the Genius The Story of the First Old Man and of the Hind The Story of the Second Old Man, and of the Two Black Dogs The Story of the Fisherman The Story of the Greek King and the Physician Douban The Story of the Husband and the Parrot The Story of the Vizir Who Was Punished The Story of the Young King of the Black Isles The Story of the Three Calendars, Sons of Kings, and of Five Ladies of Bagdad The Story of the First Calendar, Son of a King The Story of the Envious Man and of Him Who Was Envied The Story of the Second Calendar, Son of a King The Story of the Third Calendar, Son of a King The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor First Voyage Second Voyage Third Voyage Fourth Voyage Fifth Voyage Sixth Voyage Seventh and Last Voyage The Little Hunchback The Story of the Barber's Fifth Brother The Story of the Barber's Sixth Brother The Adventures of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura Noureddin and the Fair Persian Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp The Adventures of Haroun-al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad The Story of the Blind Baba-Abdalla The Story of Sidi-Nouman The Story of Ali Colia, Merchant of Bagdad The Enchanted Horse The Story of Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister