The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 14

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5
Word count
766K words
Chapters
77

Tags

English Originals Folk LiteratureWorld Classics Twists of FateMagical AdventureHuman NatureShort Story CollectionStorytellingExotic Culture

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 14 by BurtonAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PJ: Language and Literatures: Oriental languages and literatures, Release Date: Sep 1, 2002

Editor's review

This volume is the fourteenth of Richard Burton's translation of The Arabian Nights, a later installment in the complete set that continues the stories and annotation system of the preceding volumes. Burton's translation is known for preserving the original structure and for its extensive translator's notes, making it a useful reference for studying the textual transmission of the One Thousand and One Nights, the traditions of Oriental narrative, and the history of nineteenth-century English translation. It is not an introductory selection; readers need some familiarity with the earlier storylines and the conventions of the translation to move through it smoothly. The electronic edition, released by Project Gutenberg, is convenient for searching, excerpting, and reading across volumes, and is suitable as course support material or a text for private research. It is best regarded as the entrance to the latter half of a narrative labyrinth rather than a stand-alone story collection; reading it alongside Burton's notes and glossary will better convey its documentary rather than recreational character.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First confirm the volume number of the edition in hand, and begin with the earlier volumes in order to avoid gaps in plot and notes.
  2. Consult Burton's terminology and notes as you read, and keep track of character relationships and the nested story structure.
  3. Use the search function of the electronic edition to compare this volume's stories with the complete table of contents and build an overall framework.
  4. After each group of stories, take brief notes on the narrative layers to make it easier to connect with later volumes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77

FAQ

Can this volume be read on its own? You can open it and read, but it is not recommended as an introduction. The volumes of Burton's translation follow one another, and the nested stories and annotation system are interrelated, so reading this volume alone easily leaves you without context. If you only want to get to know the One Thousand and One Nights, it is better to choose a modern selected translation or start from Volume 1.
What are the characteristics of Burton's translation? Burton's translation is known for preserving the original narrative structure and for its extensive translator's notes and terminology explanations, and it has the documentary character of nineteenth-century English translation. It is not a children's abridgment; readers should note its language style and annotation conventions. It suits research reading rather than light entertainment.
What is the Gutenberg electronic edition good for? The Gutenberg edition is a free electronic text, convenient for full-text searching, excerpting, and reading across volumes, and suitable for course preparation, textual comparison, and private research. It has no modern layout or introduction, so readers must establish their own reading order and points of reference for the notes.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.