The Arabian Nights Entertainments

About the book

The frame introduces Scheherazade, who uses the continuation of a story to postpone the danger awaiting her. Within that setting, narratives lead into other narratives, making the act of listening part of the action as well as a source of pleasure. This selection includes the merchant and the genius, the fisherman, Sindbad's voyages, Aladdin, and encounters associated with Haroun-al-Raschid. Fortune can change suddenly, and a clever explanation or remembered detail may matter as much as wealth or force. Lang's volume is a selected and edited English presentation, not the whole of the extensive Nights tradition. Its linked and nested tales invite readers to notice how curiosity holds a listener, and how an account of someone else's circumstances can interrupt an apparently settled judgment.

• Storytelling and survival
• Fortune
• Judgment and ingenuity

Why read it

For an accessible selection whose nested stories make curiosity, persuasion, and the promise of continuation part of the adventure.

Selected and edited by Andrew Lang · English text