The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Easton Press Collector's Edition)

A$90 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books

BURTON, Sir Richard (trans.; notes Henry Torrens, Edward Lane John Payne; illus. Arthur Szyk). The Arabian Nights Entertainments. Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1981. Large, thick octavo. Full navy blue leather. Spine with raised bands, 22-carat gilt accents. Gilt design and lettering to covers. All edges gilt. Navy blue moiré endpapers. Navy blue satin ribbon page marker. Illustrations by Arthur Szyk throughout. Collector's Edition. Part of the Easton Press 100 Greatest Books Ever Written series. Originally published as The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night , privately printed [London]: Benares [Kamashastra Society Press], 1885–88. Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) was one of the most extraordinary figures of the Victorian age: soldier, explorer, linguist, diplomat, poet, swordsman, anthropologist, and spy. He was fluent in twenty-nine languages and a number of dialects, and, famously, disguised himself as an Afghan Muslim to make the pilgrimage to Mecca (one of the first non-Muslims to do so). His translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night , privately printed in sixteen volumes between 1885 and 1888 with a ten-volume supplement to follow, was the culminating scholarly achievement of his career: a translation of the complete Arabian Nights text from the Arabic, accompanied by extensive explanatory notes on the manners, customs, and beliefs of the Islamic world that drew on three decades of direct observation and study. It was also, for the

• Binding: Hardcover

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