The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13 | Page 4

Abdullah b. History of Sidi Nu'uman c. History of Khwajah Hasan Al-Habbal 5. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves 6. Ali Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad 7. Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu 8. The Two Sisters Who Envied Their Cadette

APPENDIX: VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES of the Tales in Volume XIII. By W. A. Clouston.

The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam Alaeddin; or, The Wonderful Lamp Khudadad and His Brothers The Story of the Blind Man, Baba Abdullah History of Sisi Nu'uman History of Khwajah Hasan Al-Habbal Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Ali Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu The Two Sisters Who Envied Their Cadette
Additional Notes:--
The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam Alaeddin; or, The Wonderful Lamp Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu

The Translator's Foreword.
The peculiar proceedings of the Curators, Bodleian Library, 1 Oxford, of which full particulars shall be given in due time, have dislocated the order of my volumes. The Prospectus had promised that Tome III. should contain detached extracts from the MS. known as the Wortley-Montague, and that No. IV. and part of No. V. should comprise a reproduction of the ten Tales (or eleven, including "The Princess of Dary?b?r"), which have so long been generally attributed to Professor Galland. Circumstances, however, wholly beyond my control have now compelled me to devote the whole of this volume to the Frenchman's stories.
It will hardly be doubted that for a complete recueil of The Nights a retranslation of the Gallandian histoires is necessary. The learned Professor Gustav Weil introduced them all, Germanised literally from the French, into the Dritter Band of his well-known version--Tausend und eine Nacht; and not a few readers of Mr. John Payne's admirable translation (the Villon) complained that they had bought it in order to see Ali Baba, Aladdin, and others translated into classical English and that they much regretted the absence of their old favourites.
But the modus operandi was my prime difficulty. I disliked the idea of an unartistic break or change in the style, ever
"T?chnat de rendre mien cet air d'antiquitú,"
and I aimed at offering to my readers a homogeneous sequel. My first thought for securing uniformity of treatment was to tender the French text into Arabic, and then to retranslate it into English. This process, however, when tried was found wanting; so I made inquiries in all directions for versions of the Gallandian histories which might have been published in Persian, Turkish, or Hindustani. Though assisted by the Prince of London Bibliopoles, Bernard Quaritch, I long failed to find my want: the vernaculars in Persian and Turkish are translated direct from the Arabic texts, and all ignore the French stories. At last a friend, Cameron McDowell, himself well known to the world of letters, sent me from Bombay a quaint lithograph with quainter illustrations which contained all I required. This was a version of Tot?r?m Sh?y?n (No. III.), which introduced the whole of the Gallandian Tales: better still, these were sufficiently orientalised and divested of their inordinate Gallicism, especially their lonesome dialogue, by being converted into Hindustani, the Urdu Zab?n (camp or court language) of Upper India and the Lingua Franca of the whole Peninsula.
During one of my sundry visits to the British Museum, I was introduced by Mr. Alexander G. Ellis to Mr. James F. Blumhardt, of Cambridge, who pointed out to me two other independent versions, one partly rhymed and partly in prose.
Thus far my work was done for me. Mr. Blumhardt, a practical Orientalist and teacher of the modem Prakrit tongues, kindly undertook, at my request, to English the Hindustani, collating at the same time, the rival versions; and thus, at a moment when my health was at its worst, he saved me all trouble and labour except that of impressing the manner with my own sign manual, and of illustrating the text, where required, with notes anthropological and other.
Meanwhile, part of my plan was modified by a visit to Paris in early 1887. At the BibliothTque Nationale I had the pleasure of meeting M. Hermann Zotenberg, keeper of Eastern manuscripts, an Orientalist of high and varied talents, and especially famous for his admirable Chronique de Tabari. Happily for me, he had lately purchased for the National Library, from a vendor who was utterly ignorant of its history, a MS. copy of The Nights, containing the Arabic originals of Zayn al-Asnam and Alaeddin. The two volumes folio are numbered and docketed Supplúment Arabe, Nos. 2522-23;" they measure 31 cent. by 20; Vol. i. contains 411 folios (822 pages) and Vol. ii. 402 (pp. 804); each page numbers fifteen lines, and each folio has its catchword. The paper is French, English and Dutch, with four to five different marks, such as G. Gautier; D. and C. Blaew; Pro Patr? and