The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights
Vitrine (anticlockwise from entrance)
1.a)
Antoine Galland.
Les mille et une nuit contes arabes… Tome III.
Paris: La Veuve de Claude Barbin, 1704.
Octavo, (160 x 90 mm.), pp. [xiv], 341. Woodcut printer’s devices on title, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces, and initials. Contemporary calf, morocco label.
First edition of Antoine Galland’s translation of the Thousand and One Nights: the first translation of the Nights into any Western language.
Volume 3, including the first appearance in print of Sindbad the Sailor.
One of three known copies (UCLA, Indiana University). Not in the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris. “The Galland edition princeps is exceedingly rare; even the copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale is incomplete” (Macdonald p. 388).
1.b)
Antoine Galland.
Les mille et une nuit contes arabes… Tome V.
Paris: La Veuve de Claude Barbin, 1705.
Octavo, (160 x 90 mm.), pp. [vi], 345. Woodcut printer’s devices on title, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces, and initials. Contemporary calf, morocco label.
First edition of Galland’s Nights.
Volume 5, including The Barber’s Story.
One of four known copies (UCLA, Indiana University, Bibliothèque Nationale Paris).
1.c)
Antoine Galland.
Les mille et une nuit contes arabes… Tome VI.
Paris: La Veuve de Claude Barbin, 1705.
3 vols octavo, (160 x 90 mm.), pp. [6], 345. Woodcut printer’s devices on titles, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces, and initials. Contemporary calf, morocco labels.
First edition of Galland’s Nights
Volume 6, including The Story of Camar-Al-Zaman.
One of four known copies (UCLA, Indiana University, Bibliothèque Nationale Paris).
2.)
Antoine Galland.
Les Mille et une Nuit.
A La Haye: Chez Pierre Husson. 1728-1731. (Vols. 1-4 1729, vols. 5-6 1728, vol. 7 1731, vol. 8 1728, vols. 9-11 1730, vol. 12 1731).
12 volumes, 12mo. (135 x 75 mm.), pp. [xx], 268; [viii], 304; [xii], 300; [viii], 280; [viii], 303; [viii], 400; [vi], 364; [iv], 278, [vi] (advertisements); [iv], 332; [vi], 328; [vi], 316; [iv], 320. With 12 engraved frontispieces (6 repeated), woodcut and typographical headpieces and tailpieces, woodcut initials. Contemporary calf, later morocco labels.
An early complete set of Galland's translation of the Nights, with the first suite of printed illustrations of the Nights.
One of a handful of complete early sets of the Nights to have survived. Five examples of 1731 or earlier are recorded in institutional collections (OCLC): Indiana University, 1704-1717; UCLA, 1704-1717; Princeton, 1706-1720; National Library of Chile, 1726; National Library of Sweden, 1728-1731.
3.)
Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories, Told By The Sultaness of the Indies to divert the Sultan from the Execution of a Bloody Vow he had made to marry a Lady every Day, and have her cut off next Morning, to avenge himself for the Disloyalty of his first Sultaness, &c.
London: T. Longman and T. Shewell, 1744-8.
12 volumes bound in 6, octavo. (170 x 100mm). Vols 1&2 (1745): [viii], [1], 2-130, [1-3], 4-150; A-M12. Vols 3&4 (1745): [ii], [3]-261, [iii]; A-L12. Vols
5&6 (1745): ii, 3-139, [v], [1], 2-192; A-F12,B-I12. Vols 7&8 (1745, 1744): [iv], 5-189, [iii], [1-3], 4-152, [v]; A-H12, A-H12, G6. Vols 9&10 (1748): [ii], [3]-133, [ii], [1]-148, [iv]; A-M12. Vols 11&12 (1748): [ii], [1]-137, [1]-[3], 4-145, [iii]; A-M12. Woodcut headpieces, tailpieces and initials. Contemporary calf, later morocco labels.
First English translation.
The work of an anonymous translator, based on the Galland translation.
4.)
Edward Lane.
The Thousand and One Nights. Commonly called, in England, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. A new translation from the Arabic, with copious notes. By Edward William Lane, author of “the Modern Egyptians”. Illustrated by many hundred engravings on wood from original designs by William Harvey.
London: Charles Knight, 1839-1841.
3 vols. octavo (250 x 160 mm.), pp. xxxii, 618, [4]; xii, 643, [1]; xii, 763, [1]. Original publisher’s green cloth decorated in blind and gilt. With over 600 woodcuts.
First edition of Edward Lane’s translation.
5.)
Richard Francis Burton.
A Plain And Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, Now Entitled The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night With Introduction Explanatory Notes On The Manners And Customs Of Moslem Men And A Terminal Essay Upon The History Of The Nights.
Benares [Stoke Newington]: printed by the Kamashastra Society, for private subscribers only, 1885-1888.
16 vols. octavo (250 x 160 mm.), pp. vxii, 362; 343; viii, 356; ix, 308; xi, 406; viii, 303; viii, 382; 359; viii, 359; 532; xi, 370; ix, 392; xiii, 661; xv, 381; viii, 515; viii, 500. Original publisher’s black cloth, covers with banner and Arabic text in gilt (vols. 1-10) and banner and Arabic text in silver (vols. 11-16).
First edition of Richard Francis Burton’s translation.
Macdonald, P. A Bibliographical and Literary Study of the First Appearance of the "Arabian Nights" in Europe. In: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1932.