Editing One Thousand and One Nights (section)

{{short description|Collection of Middle Eastern folk tales}}
{{Redirect2|1001 Nights|Arabian Nights|other uses|One Thousand and One Nights (disambiguation)|and|1001 Nights (disambiguation)|and|Arabian Nights (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox book
| name              = One Thousand and One Nights
| image             = Cassim.jpg
| caption           = ''[[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves|Cassim in the Cave]]''<br />by [[Maxfield Parrish]] (1909)
| orig_lang_code    = ar
| language          = [[Classical Arabic|Arabic]]
| subject           = 
| genre             = [[Frame story]], [[folklore]]
| set_in            = [[Middle Ages]]
| wikisource        = One Thousand and One Nights
}}
{{Arab culture}}

'''''One Thousand and One Nights''''' ({{langx|ar|أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ}}, {{Transliteration|ar|Alf Laylah wa-Laylah}}),<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|author=Marzolph, Ulrich|title=Arabian Nights|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam|edition=3rd|editor=Kate Fleet |editor2=Gudrun Krämer |editor3=Denis Matringe |editor4=John Nawas |editor5=Everett Rowson|year=2007|quote=Arabian Nights, the work known in Arabic as ''Alf layla wa-layla''|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_0021}}</ref> is a collection of [[History of the Middle East|Middle Eastern]] [[List of fairy tales|folktales]] compiled in the Arabic language during the [[Islamic Golden Age]]. It is often known in English as '''''The Arabian Nights''''', from the first English-language edition ({{c.|1706–1721}}), which rendered the title as '''''The Arabian Nights' Entertainments'''''.<ref>See illustration of title page of Grub St Edition in Yamanaka and Nishio (p. 225)</ref>

The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across [[West Asia]], [[Central Asia]], [[South Asia]], and [[North Africa]].  Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval [[Arabic literature|Arabic]], [[Persian literature|Persian]], and [[Mesopotamian myths|Mesopotamian]] literature.<ref>{{cite book|title=Translating Myth |editor=Ben Pestell |editor2=Pietra Palazzolo |editor3=Leon Burnett |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YOoyDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT87|year=2016|publisher=Routledge|page=87|isbn=978-1-134-86256-6 }}</ref> Most tales, however, were originally folk stories from the [[Abbasid]] and [[Mamluk Sultanate|Mamluk eras]], while others, especially the frame story, are probably drawn from the [[Middle Persian literature#"Pahlavi" literature|Pahlavi Persian work]] {{transliteration|fa|Hezār Afsān}} ({{langx|fa|هزار افسان}}, {{lit|A Thousand Tales}}), which in turn may be translations of [[Indian literature|older Indian texts]].<ref>{{Citation| last=Marzolph| encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam| title=Arabian Nights| year=2007| publisher=Brill| volume=I| location=Leiden| postscript=.}}</ref>

Common to all the editions of the ''Nights'' is the [[framing device]] of the story of the ruler [[List of One Thousand and One Nights characters#Shahryar|Shahryar]] being narrated the tales by his wife [[Scheherazade]], with one tale told over each night of storytelling. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while some are self-contained. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights of storytelling, while others include 1001 or more. The bulk of the text is in [[prose]], although [[Verse (poetry)|verse]] is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion. Most of the poems are single [[couplet]]s or [[quatrain]]s, although some are longer.

Some of the stories commonly associated with the ''Arabian Nights''—particularly "[[Aladdin|Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp]]" and "[[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves]]"—were not part of the collection in the original Arabic versions, but were instead added to the collection by French translator [[Antoine Galland]] after he heard them from [[Syria|Syrian]] writer [[Hanna Diyab]] during the latter's visit to [[Paris]].<ref>John Payne, ''Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories'', (London 1901) gives details of Galland's encounter with 'Hanna' in 1709 and of the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Aladdin and two more of the added tales. [http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.htm Text of "Alaeddin and the enchanted lamp"]</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Horta |first=Paulo Lemos |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OuMZDgAAQBAJ&q=Hanna+Diyab+syrian&pg=PA2 |title=Marvellous Thieves |date=2017-01-16 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-97377-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Doyle |first=Laura |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LWYGEAAAQBAJ&q=Hanna+Diyab+syrian&pg=PT78 |title=Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of Alliance |date=2020-11-02 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-1-4780-1261-0 |language=en}}</ref> Other stories, such as "[[Sinbad the Sailor|The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor]]", had an independent existence before being added to the collection.