Editing One Thousand and One Nights (section)

==History, versions and translations==
The history of the ''Nights'' is extremely complex and modern scholars have made many attempts to untangle the story of how the collection as it currently exists came about. [[Robert Irwin (writer)|Robert Irwin]] summarises their findings:

{{blockquote|In the 1880s and 1890s a lot of work was done on the ''Nights'' by [[Hermann Zotenberg|Zotenberg]] and others, in the course of which a consensus view of the history of the text emerged. Most scholars agreed that the Nights was a composite work and that the earliest tales in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probably in the early eighth century, these tales were translated into Arabic under the title ''Alf Layla'', or 'The Thousand Nights'. This collection then formed the basis of ''The Thousand and One Nights''. The original core of stories was quite small. Then, in Iraq in the ninth or tenth century, this original core had Arab stories added to it—among them some tales about the Caliph [[Harun al-Rashid]]. Also, perhaps from the tenth century onwards, previously independent sagas and story cycles were added to the compilation [...] Then, from the 13th century onwards, a further layer of stories was added in Syria and Egypt, many of these showing a preoccupation with sex, magic or low life. In the early modern period yet more stories were added to the Egyptian collections so as to swell the bulk of the text sufficiently to bring its length up to the full 1,001 nights of storytelling promised by the book's title.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=48}}}}

===Possible Indian influence===
Devices found in Sanskrit literature such as frame stories and animal fables are seen by some scholars as lying at the root of the conception of the ''Nights''.<ref name="Reynolds p.271">Reynolds p. 271</ref> The motif of the wise young woman who delays and finally removes an impending danger by telling stories has been traced back to Indian sources.<ref name="EI2">{{Cite encyclopedia|author=Hamori, A.|title=S̲h̲ahrazād|year=2012|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam|edition=2nd|publisher=Brill|editor=P. Bearman|editor2=Th. Bianquis|editor3=C.E. Bosworth|editor4=E. van Donzel|editor5=W.P. Heinrichs|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6771}}</ref> Indian folklore is represented in the ''Nights'' by certain animal stories, which reflect influence from ancient [[Sanskrit literature|Sanskrit fables]]. The influence of the ''[[Panchatantra]]'' and ''[[Baital Pachisi]]'' is particularly notable.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48511/48511-h/48511-h.htm|title=Vikram and the Vampire, or, Tales of Hindu devilry, by Richard Francis Burton—A Project Gutenberg eBook|page=xiii|website=www.gutenberg.org}}</ref>

It is possible that the influence of the ''Panchatantra'' is via a Sanskrit adaptation called the ''Tantropakhyana''. Only fragments of the original Sanskrit form of the ''Tantropakhyana'' survive, but translations or adaptations exist in Tamil,<ref>Artola. ''Pancatantra'' Manuscripts from South India in the ''Adyar Library Bulletin''. 1957. pp. 45&nbsp;ff.</ref> Lao,<ref>K. Raksamani. ''The Nandakaprakarana attributed to Vasubhaga, a Comparative Study''. University of Toronto Thesis. 1978. pp. 221&nbsp;ff.</ref> Thai,<ref>E. Lorgeou. ''Les entretiensde Nang Tantrai''. Paris. 1924.</ref> and [[Old Javanese]].<ref>C. Hooykaas. Bibliotheca Javaneca No. 2. Bandoeng. 1931.</ref> The frame story follows the broad outline of a concubine telling stories in order to maintain the interest and favour of a king—although the basis of the collection of stories is from the ''Panchatantra''—with its original Indian setting.<ref>A. K. Warder. ''Indian Kāvya Literature: The art of storytelling, Volume VI''. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 1992. pp. 61–62, 76–82.</ref>

The ''Panchatantra'' and various tales from ''Jatakas'' were first translated into Persian by [[Borzūya]] in 570 CE;<ref>[http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=106622 IIS.ac.uk Dr Fahmida Suleman, "Kalila wa Dimna"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103111055/http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=106622 |date=2013-11-03 }}, in ''Medieval Islamic Civilization, An Encyclopaedia'', Vol. II, pp. 432–433, ed. Josef W. Meri, New York-London: Routledge, 2006</ref> they were later translated into Arabic by [[Ibn al-Muqaffa]] in 750 CE.<ref>''The Fables of Kalila and Dimnah'', translated from the Arabic by Saleh Sa'adeh Jallad, 2002. Melisende, London, {{ISBN|1-901764-14-1}}</ref> The Arabic version was translated into several languages, including Syriac, Greek, Hebrew and Spanish.<ref>Kalilah and Dimnah; or, The fables of Bidpai; being an account of their literary history, [https://archive.org/stream/kalilahdimnahorf00bdpkuoft#page/n19/mode/2up p. xiv]</ref>

===Persian prototype: {{transliteration|fa|Hezār Afsān}}===
[[File:Kelileh va Demneh.jpg|thumb|A page from Kelileh va Demneh dated 1429, from Herat, a Persian version of the original ancient Indian [[Panchatantra]] – depicts the manipulative jackal-vizier, Dimna, trying to lead his lion-king into war.]]
The earliest mentions of the ''Nights'' refer to it as an Arabic translation from a Persian book, {{transliteration|fa|Hezār Afsān}} (also known as ''Afsaneh'' or ''Afsana''), meaning 'The Thousand Stories'. In the tenth century, [[Ibn al-Nadim]] compiled a catalogue of books (the "[[Fihrist]]") in Baghdad. He noted that the [[Sasanian dynasty|Sassanid]] kings of Iran enjoyed "evening tales and fables".{{sfn|Pinault|1992|p=1}} Al-Nadim then writes about the Persian {{transliteration|fa|Hezār Afsān}}, explaining the frame story it employs: a bloodthirsty king kills off a succession of wives after their wedding night. Eventually one has the intelligence to save herself by telling him a story every evening, leaving each tale unfinished until the next night so that the king will delay her execution.{{sfn|Pinault|1992|p=4}}

However, according to al-Nadim, the book contains only 200 stories. He also writes disparagingly of the collection's literary quality, observing that "it is truly a coarse book, without warmth in the telling".{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=49–50}} In the same century [[Al-Masudi]] also refers to the {{transliteration|fa|Hezār Afsān}}, saying the Arabic translation is called {{transliteration|ar|Alf Khurafa}} ('A Thousand Entertaining Tales'), but is generally known as {{transliteration|ar|Alf Layla}} ('A Thousand Nights'). He mentions the characters Shirāzd (Scheherazade) and Dināzād.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=49}}

No physical evidence of the {{transliteration|fa|Hezār Afsān}} has survived,<ref name="Reynolds p.271"/> so its exact relationship with the existing later Arabic versions remains a mystery.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=51}} Apart from the Scheherazade frame story, several other tales have Persian origins, although it is unclear how they entered the collection.<ref>Eva Sallis ''Scheherazade Through the Looking-Glass: The Metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights'' (Routledge, 1999), p. 2 and note 6</ref> These stories include the cycle of "King Jali'ad and his Wazir Shimas" and "The Ten Wazirs or the History of King Azadbakht and his Son" (derived from the seventh-century Persian {{transliteration|pal|Bakhtiyārnāma}}).{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=76}}

In the 1950s, the [[Iraqi people|Iraqi]] scholar [[Safa Khulusi]] suggested (on internal rather than historical evidence) that the Persian writer [[Ibn al-Muqaffa']] was responsible for the first Arabic translation of the frame story and some of the Persian stories later incorporated into the Nights. This would place genesis of the collection in the eighth century.<ref>Safa Khulusi, ''Studies in Comparative Literature and Western Literary Schools,'' Chapter: ''Qisas Alf Laylah wa Laylah'' (''One thousand and one Nights''), pp. 15–85. Al-Rabita Press, Baghdad, 1957.</ref><ref>Safa Khulusi, The Influence of Ibn al-Muqaffa' on The Arabian Nights. ''Islamic Review'', Dec 1960, pp. 29–31</ref>

===Evolving Arabic versions===
[[File:Princess Parizade Bringing Home the Singing Tree.jpg|thumb|[[The Sisters Envious of Their Cadette|The story of ''Princess Parizade'' and the ''Magic Tree'']] by [[Maxfield Parrish]], 1906<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ATkQAAAAYAAJ&dq=princess+parizade&pg=PA543 The Thousand and One Nights; Or, The Arabian Night's Entertainments – David Claypoole Johnston – Google Books]. Books.google.com.pk. Retrieved on 2013-09-23.</ref>]]

In the mid-20th century, the scholar [[Nabia Abbott]] found a document with a few lines of an Arabic work with the title ''The Book of the Tale of a Thousand Nights'', dating from the ninth century. This is the earliest known surviving fragment of the ''Nights''.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=51}} The first reference to the Arabic version under its full title ''The One Thousand and One Nights'' appears in Cairo in the 12th century.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=50}} Professor Dwight Reynolds describes the subsequent transformations of the Arabic version:

{{blockquote|Some of the earlier Persian tales may have survived within the Arabic tradition altered such that Arabic Muslim names and new locations were substituted for pre-Islamic Persian ones, but it is also clear that whole cycles of Arabic tales were eventually added to the collection and apparently replaced most of the Persian materials. One such cycle of Arabic tales centres around a small group of historical figures from ninth-century Baghdad, including the caliph [[Harun al-Rashid]] (died 809), his vizier [[Ja'far ibn Yahya|Jafar al-Barmaki]] (d. 803) and the licentious poet [[Abu Nuwas]] (d. c. 813). Another cluster is a body of stories from late medieval Cairo in which are mentioned persons and places that date to as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.<ref name="Reynolds p.270">Reynolds p. 270</ref>}}

Two main Arabic manuscript traditions of the Nights are known: the Syrian and the Egyptian. The Syrian tradition is primarily represented by the earliest extensive manuscript of the ''Nights'', a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Syrian manuscript now known as the [[Galland Manuscript]]. It and surviving copies of it are much shorter and include fewer tales than the Egyptian tradition. It is represented in print by the so-called ''Calcutta I'' (1814–1818) and most notably by the 'Leiden edition' (1984).<ref name=beaustyle>Beaumont, Daniel. Literary Style and Narrative Technique in the Arabian Nights. p. 1. In ''The Arabian nights encyclopedia'', Volume 1</ref>{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=55}} The Leiden Edition, prepared by [[Muhsin Mahdi]], is the only [[critical edition]] of 1001 Nights to date,<ref name="Marzolph, Ulrich 2017">{{Cite encyclopedia|author=Marzolph, Ulrich|title=Arabian Nights|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam|edition=3rd|editor1=Kate Fleet|editor2=Gudrun Krämer|editor3=Denis Matringe|editor4=John Nawas|editor5=Everett Rowson|publisher=Brill|year=2017|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_0021}}</ref> believed to be most stylistically faithful representation of medieval Arabic versions currently available.<ref name=beaustyle/>{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=55}}

Texts of the Egyptian tradition emerge later and contain many more tales of much more varied content; a much larger number of originally independent tales have been incorporated into the collection over the centuries, most of them after the Galland manuscript was written,<ref name="sallis">[[Eva Sallis|Sallis, Eva]]. 1999. Sheherazade through the looking glass: the metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights. pp. 18–43</ref> and were being included as late as in the 18th and 19th centuries.

All extant substantial versions of both [[recension]]s share a small common core of tales:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.172872|title=The Book Of Thousand Nights And One Night |volume=IX |last1=Payne|first1=John|date=1901|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.172872/page/n317 289]|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref>

* The Merchant and the Genie
* [[The Fisherman and the Jinni|The Fisherman and the Genie]]
* The Porter and the Three Ladies
* [[The Three Apples]]
* [[s:Tale of Núr al-Dín Alí and His Son Badr al-Dín Hasan|Nur al-Din Ali and Shams al-Din (and Badr al-Din Hasan)]]
* Nur al-Din Ali and Anis al-Jalis
* Ali Ibn Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar

The texts of the Syrian recension do not contain much beside that core. It is debated which of the Arabic recensions is more "authentic" and closer to the original: the Egyptian ones have been modified more extensively and more recently, and scholars such as [[Muhsin Mahdi]] have suspected that this was caused in part by European demand for a "complete version"; but it appears that this type of modification has been common throughout the history of the collection, and independent tales have always been added to it.<ref name="sallis" /><ref>Pinault, David. Story-telling techniques in the Arabian nights. pp. 1–12. Also in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, v. 1</ref>

=== Printed Arabic editions ===
The first printed Arabic-language edition of the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' was published in 1775. It contained an Egyptian version of ''The Nights'' known as "ZER" ([[Hermann Zotenberg|Zotenberg]]'s Egyptian Recension) and 200 tales. No copy of this edition survives, but it was the basis for an 1835 edition by Bulaq, published by the Egyptian government.
[[File:Arabic manuscript with parts of Arabian Nights, collected by scholar and traveler Heinrich Friedrich von Diez, 19th century CE.jpg|thumb|Arabic manuscript with parts of Arabian Nights, collected by Heinrich Friedrich von Diez, 19th century CE, origin unknown]]
The ''Nights'' were next printed in Arabic in two volumes in Calcutta by the [[British East India Company]] in 1814–1818. Each volume contained one hundred tales.

Soon after, the Prussian scholar [[Christian Habicht (historian)|Christian Maximilian Habicht]] collaborated with the Tunisian Mordecai ibn al-Najjar to create an edition containing 1001 nights both in the original Arabic and in German translation, initially in a series of eight volumes published in [[Breslau]] in 1825–1838. A further four volumes followed in 1842–1843. In addition to the Galland manuscript, Habicht and al-Najjar used what they believed to be a Tunisian manuscript, which was later revealed as a forgery by al-Najjar.<ref name="Marzolph, Ulrich 2017" />

Both the ZER printing and Habicht and al-Najjar's edition influenced the next printing, a four-volume edition also from Calcutta (known as the ''Macnaghten'' or ''Calcutta II'' edition).<ref>''[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009733325 The Alif Laila or, Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Commonly Known as 'The Arabian Nights' Entertainments', Now, for the First Time, Published Complete in the Original Arabic, from an Egyptian Manuscript Brought to India by the Late Major Turner Macan]'', ed. by W. H. Macnaghten, vol. 4 (Calcutta: Thacker, 1839–42).</ref> This claimed to be based on an older Egyptian manuscript (which has never been found).

A major recent edition, which reverts to the [[Syria]]n recension, is a critical edition based on the fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Syrian manuscript in the [[Bibliothèque Nationale]], originally used by Galland.<ref name="BnF manuscript">{{cite web |title=Les Mille et une nuits |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8433372b |website=Bibliothèque nationale de France |access-date=29 September 2020}}</ref> This edition, known as the Leiden text, was compiled in Arabic by [[Muhsin Mahdi]] (1984–1994).<ref>''The Thousand and One Nights (Alf layla wa-layla), from the Earliest Known Sources'', ed. by Muhsin Mahdi, 3 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1984–1994), {{ISBN|90-04-07428-7}}.</ref> Mahdi argued that this version is the earliest extant one (a view that is largely accepted today) and that it reflects most closely a "definitive" coherent text ancestral to all others that he believed to have existed during the [[Mamluk]] period (a view that remains contentious).<ref name="sallis" /><ref>Madeleine Dobie, 2009. Translation in the contact zone: Antoine Galland's Mille et une nuits: contes arabes. p. 37. In [[Saree Makdisi]] and [[Felicity Nussbaum]] (eds.): "The Arabian Nights in Historical Context: Between East and West"</ref>{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=1–9}} Still, even scholars who deny this version the exclusive status of "the only ''real'' Arabian Nights" recognize it as being the best source on the original ''style'' and linguistic form of the medieval work.<ref name="beaustyle" />{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=55}}

In 1997, a further Arabic edition appeared, containing tales from the Arabian Nights transcribed from a seventeenth-century manuscript in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic.<ref>''Alf laylah wa-laylah: bi-al-ʻāmmīyah al-Miṣrīyah: layālī al-ḥubb wa-al-ʻishq'', ed. by Hishām ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz and ʻĀdil ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd (Cairo: Dār al-Khayyāl, 1997), {{ISBN|977-19-2252-1}}.</ref>

===Modern translations===
{{main|Translations of One Thousand and One Nights}}
[[File:William-Strang-Sindbad-AliBaba-titlepage.JPG|thumb|''Sindbad the sailor and Ali Baba and the forty thieves'' by [[William Strang]], 1896]]
The first European version (1704–1717) was translated into [[French language|French]] by [[Antoine Galland]]<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Thousand and One Nights |volume=28 |page=883 |first=Michael Jan de |last=Goeje |author-link=Michael Jan de Goeje}}</ref> from an Arabic text of the Syrian recension and other sources. This 12-volume work,<ref name=EB1911/> ''[[Les mille et une nuits|Les Mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français]]'' ('The Thousand and one nights, Arab stories translated into French'), included stories that were not in the original Arabic manuscript. "[[Aladdin's lamp|Aladdin's Lamp]]", and "[[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves]]" (as well as several other lesser-known tales) appeared first in Galland's translation and cannot be found in any of the original manuscripts. He wrote that he heard them from the Christian Maronite storyteller [[Hanna Diab]] during Diab's visit to Paris. Galland's version of the ''Nights'' was immensely popular throughout Europe, and later versions were issued by Galland's publisher using Galland's name without his consent.

As scholars were looking for the presumed "complete" and "original" form of the Nights, they naturally turned to the more voluminous texts of the Egyptian recension, which soon came to be viewed as the "standard version". The first translations of this kind, such as that of [[Edward William Lane|Edward Lane]] (1840, 1859), were [[bowdlerized]]. Unabridged and unexpurgated translations were made, first by [[John Payne (poet)|John Payne]], under the title ''The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night'' (1882, nine volumes), and then by [[Sir Richard Francis Burton]], entitled ''[[The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night]]'' (1885, ten volumes)&nbsp;– the latter was, according to some assessments, partially based on the former, leading to charges of [[plagiarism]].<ref name=sallis2/><ref name=encyclo>Marzolph, Ulrich and Richard van Leeuwen. 2004. ''The Arabian nights encyclopedia'', Volume 1. pp. 506–508</ref>

In view of the [[Human sexuality|sexual]] imagery in the source texts (which Burton emphasized even further, especially by adding extensive footnotes and appendices on Oriental sexual mores<ref name=encyclo/>) and the strict [[Victorian morality|Victorian]] laws on obscene material, both of these translations were printed as private editions for subscribers only, rather than published in the usual manner. Burton's original 10 volumes were followed by a further six (seven in the Baghdad Edition and perhaps others) entitled ''The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night'', which were printed between 1886 and 1888.<ref name=EB1911/>  It has, however, been criticized for its "archaic language and extravagant idiom" and "obsessive focus on sexuality" (and has even been called an "eccentric [[wikt:ego-trip|ego-trip]]" and a "highly personal reworking of the text").<ref name=encyclo/>

Later versions of the ''Nights'' include that of the [[French people|French]] doctor [[J. C. Mardrus]], issued from 1898 to 1904. It was translated into English by [[Powys Mathers]], and issued in 1923. Like Payne's and Burton's texts, it is based on the Egyptian recension and retains the erotic material, indeed expanding on it, but it has been criticized for inaccuracy.<ref name=sallis2>Sallis, Eva. 1999. Sheherazade through the looking glass: the metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights. pp. 4 ''passim''</ref>

[[Muhsin Mahdi]]'s 1984 Leiden edition, based on the Galland Manuscript, was rendered into English by Husain Haddawy (1990).<ref>''The Arabian Nights'', trans. by Husain Haddawy (New York: Norton, 1990).</ref> This translation has been praised as "very readable" and "strongly recommended for anyone who wishes to taste the authentic flavour of those tales".{{sfn|Irwin|2004}} An additional second volume of ''Arabian nights'' translated by Haddawy, composed of popular tales ''not'' present in the Leiden edition, was published in 1995.<ref>''The Arabian Nights II: Sindbad and Other Popular Stories'', trans. by Husain Haddawy (New York: Norton, 1995).</ref> Both volumes were the basis for a single-volume reprint of selected tales of Haddawy's translations.<ref>''The Arabian Nights: The Husain Haddawy Translation Based on the Text Edited by Muhsin Mahdi, Contexts, Criticism'', ed. by Daniel Heller-Roazen (New York: Norton, 2010).</ref>

A new English translation was published by Penguin Classics in three volumes in 2008.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Buchan |first=James |date=2008-12-27 |title=1,001 flights of fancy |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/dec/27/arabian-nights-malcolm-c-lyons |access-date=2023-06-28 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=truyen audio full |url=https://www.truyenvietaudio.com/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806122214/http://truyenvietaudio.com/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=August 6, 2018 |website=2023-06-28}}</ref> It is translated by Malcolm C. Lyons and Ursula Lyons with introduction and annotations by Robert Irwin. This is the first complete translation of the Macnaghten or Calcutta II edition (Egyptian recension) since Burton's. It contains, in addition to the standard text of 1001 Nights, the so-called "orphan stories" of ''[[Aladdin]]'' and ''[[Ali Baba]]'' as well as an alternative ending to ''The seventh journey of [[Sindbad]]'' from [[Antoine Galland]]'s original French. As the translator himself notes in his preface to the three volumes, "[N]o attempt has been made to superimpose on the translation changes that would be needed to 'rectify' ... accretions, ... repetitions, non sequiturs and confusions that mark the present text," and the work is a "representation of what is primarily oral literature, appealing to the ear rather than the eye".<ref>[http://www.pen.org/blog/?p=4056 PEN American Center]. Pen.org. Retrieved on 2013-09-23.</ref> The Lyons translation includes all the poetry (in plain prose paraphrase) but does not attempt to reproduce in English the internal rhyming of some prose sections of the original Arabic. Moreover, it streamlines somewhat and has cuts. In this sense it is not, as claimed, a complete translation. This translation was generally well-received upon release.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights|url=http://www.theomnivore.co.uk/Book/Classification/Fiction/Genre/Classic_Fiction/1527-The_Arabian_Nights_Tales_of_1001_Nights/Default.aspx|access-date=12 July 2024|website=[[The Omnivore]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120913024501/http://www.theomnivore.co.uk/Book/Classification/Fiction/Genre/Classic_Fiction/1527-The_Arabian_Nights_Tales_of_1001_Nights/Default.aspx|archive-date=13 Sep 2012}}</ref>

A new English language translation was published in December 2021, the first solely by a female author, [[Yasmine Seale]], which removes earlier sexist and racist references. The new translation includes all the tales from Hanna Diyab and additionally includes stories previously omitted featuring female protagonists, such as tales about Parizade, Pari Banu, and the horror story Sidi Numan.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/15/new-arabian-nights-translation-to-strip-away-earlier-versions-racism-and-sexism|title=New Arabian Nights translation to strip away earlier versions' racism and sexism|first=Alison|last=Flood|work=www.theguardian.com|date=December 15, 2021|access-date=December 15, 2021}}</ref>

===Timeline===
[[File:Arabian nights manuscript.jpg|thumb|Arabic manuscript of ''The Thousand and One Nights'' dating back to the 14th century]]
Scholars have assembled a timeline concerning the publication history of ''The Nights'':<ref>Dwight Reynolds. "The Thousand and One Nights: A History of the Text and its Reception". ''The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period''. Cambridge UP, 2006.</ref>{{sfn|Irwin|2004}}<ref>"The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century", by Martha Pike Conant, Ph.D. Columbia University Press (1908)</ref>
* One of the oldest Arabic manuscript fragments from Syria (a few handwritten pages) dating to the early ninth century. Discovered by scholar Nabia Abbott in 1948, it bears the title ''Kitab Hadith Alf Layla'' ("The Book of the Tale of the Thousand Nights") and the first few lines of the book in which Dinazad asks Shirazad (Scheherazade) to tell her stories.<ref name="Reynolds p.270"/>
* 10th century: mention of ''Hezār Afsān'' in [[Ibn al-Nadim]]'s "Fihrist" (Catalogue of books) in [[Baghdad]]. He attributes a pre-Islamic [[Sasanian dynasty|Sassanid]] Persian origin to the collection and refers to the frame story of Scheherazade telling stories over a thousand nights to save her life.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=49–50}}
* 10th century: reference to ''The Thousand Nights'', an Arabic translation of the Persian ''Hezār Afsān'' ("Thousand Stories"),  in ''Muruj Al-Dhahab'' ([[The Meadows of Gold]]) by [[Al-Mas'udi]].{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=49}}
* 12th century: a document from [[Cairo]] refers to a Jewish bookseller lending a copy of ''The Thousand and One Nights'' (this is the first appearance of the final form of the title).{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=50}}
* 14th century: existing Syrian manuscript in the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]] in Paris (contains about 300 tales).<ref name="BnF manuscript" />
* 1704: [[Antoine Galland]]'s French translation is the first European version of ''Nights''. Later volumes were introduced using Galland's name, though the stories were written by unknown persons at the behest of the publisher, who wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the collection.
* c. 1706 – c. 1721: an anonymously translated 12-volume English version appears in Europe, dubbed the "[[Grub Street]]" version. This is entitled ''Arabian Nights' Entertainments''—the first known use of the common English title of the work.<ref>{{cite book |year=2009 |orig-date=1995 |editor1-last=Mack |editor1-first=Robert L. |title=Arabian Nights' Entertainments |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZK0VDAAAQBAJ&q=%22collection+in+about+1721%22&pg=PR16 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=xvi, xxv |isbn=978-0-19-283479-9 |access-date=2 July 2018 }}</ref>
* 1768: first [[Polish language|Polish]] translation, 12 volumes. Based, as with many European versions, on the [[French language|French]] translation.
* 1775: Egyptian version of ''Nights'' called "ZER" ([[Hermann Zotenberg]]'s Egyptian Recension) with 200 tales (no extant edition).
* 1804–1806, 1825: Austrian polyglot and orientalist [[Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall]] (1774–1856) translates a subsequently lost manuscript into French between 1804 and 1806. His French translation, which was partially abridged and included Galland's "orphan stories",  has been lost, but its translation into German,  published in 1825, survives.{{sfn|Irwin|2010|p=474}}
* 1814: Calcutta I, the earliest existing Arabic printed version, is published by the [[British East India Company]]. A second volume was released in 1818. Both had 100 tales each.
* 1811: Jonathan Scott (1754–1829), an Englishman who learned Arabic and Persian in India, produces an English translation, mostly based on Galland's French version, supplemented by other sources.  Robert Irwin calls it the "first literary translation into English", in contrast to earlier translations from French by  "Grub Street hacks".{{sfn|Irwin|2010|p=497}}
* Early 19th century: [[Modern Persian]] translations of the text are made, variously under the title ''Alf leile va leile'', ''Hezār-o yek šhab'' ({{lang|fa|هزار و یک شب}}), or, in distorted Arabic, ''Alf al-leil''. Muhammad Baqir Khurasani Buzanjirdi (b.1770) finalized his translation in 1814, patronized by Henry Russell, 2nd Baronet (1783–1852), British Resident in Hyderabad. Three decades later, Abdul Latif Tasuji completed his translation.<ref>Ganjavi, Mahdi. The Hidden Story of One Thousand and One Nights in Persian. Presentation at the University of British Columbia. Dec 2021</ref> It was later illustrated by [[Sani ol Molk]] (1814–1866)  for [[Mohammad Shah Qajar]].<ref>
Ulrich Marzolph, ''The Arabian nights in transnational perspective'', 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-8143-3287-0}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tknULXNl21oC&pg=PA230 p. 230].</ref>
* 1825–1838: the Breslau/Habicht edition is published in [[Arabic]] in eight volumes. Christian Maximilian Habicht (born in [[Breslau]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], 1775) collaborated with the Tunisian Mordecai ibn al-Najjar to create this edition containing 1001 nights. In addition to the Galland manuscript, they used what they believed to be a Tunisian manuscript, which was later revealed as a forgery by al-Najjar.<ref name="Marzolph, Ulrich 2017"/> Using versions of ''Nights'', tales from Al-Najjar, and other stories of unknown origin, Habicht published his version in Arabic and [[German language|German]].
* 1842–1843: Four additional volumes by Habicht.
* 1835: Bulaq version: these two volumes, printed by the Egyptian government, are the oldest printed and published version of ''Nights'' in Arabic by a non-European. It is primarily a reprinting of the ZER text.
* 1839–1842: Calcutta II (4 volumes) is published. It claims to be based on an older Egyptian manuscript (this has never been found). This version contains many elements and stories from the Habicht edition.
* 1838: Torrens version in English.
* 1838–1840: [[Edward William Lane]] publishes an English translation. Notable for Lane's exclusion of content he found immoral and for his [[anthropological]] notes on Arab customs.
* 1882–1884: [[John Payne (poet)|John Payne]] publishes an English version translated entirely from Calcutta II, adding some tales from Calcutta I and Breslau.
* 1885–1888: [[Sir Richard Francis Burton]] publishes [[The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night|an English translation]] from several sources (largely the same as Payne<ref name=sallis2/>). His version accentuated the sexuality of the stories ''vis-à-vis'' Lane's [[bowdlerized]] translation.
* 1889–1904: J. C. Mardrus publishes a French version using Bulaq and Calcutta II editions.
* 1973: First [[Polish language|Polish]] translation based on the original language edition, but compressed 12 volumes to 9, by [[Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy]].
* 1984: [[Muhsin Mahdi]] publishes an Arabic edition based on the oldest surviving Arabic manuscript (based on the oldest surviving Syrian manuscript currently held in the Bibliothèque Nationale).
* 1986–1987: French translation by Arabist [[René R. Khawam]].
* 1990: Husain Haddawy publishes an English translation of Mahdi.
* 1991: French translation by Arabists Jamel-Eddine Bencheikh and [[André Miquel]] for the [[Bibliothèque de la Pléiade]].
* 2008: New Penguin Classics translation (in three volumes) by Malcolm C. Lyons and Ursula Lyons of the Calcutta II edition