The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights [Hardcover]

[A]n electric new translation . . . Each page is adorned with illustrations and photographs from other translations and adaptations of the tales, as well as a wonderfully detailed cascade of notes that illuminate the stories and their settings. . . . The most striking feature of the Arabic tales is their shifting registersprose, rhymed prose, poetryand Seale captures the movement between them beautifully. Yasmine Al-Sayyad, [A]n electric new translation . . . Each page is adorned with illustrations and photographs from other translations and adaptations of the tales, as well as a wonderfully detailed cascade of notes that illuminate the stories and their settings. . . . The most striking feature of the Arabic tales is their shifting registersprose, rhymed prose, poetryand Seale captures the movement between them beautifully. [A] gorgeous illustrated volume . . . On display again is the spectacular panoply of storytelling, from tales of magic and wonder to murder mysteries to instructional fables to sexual burlesques. But also contained in this heaping volume is the history of how the tales coalesced, a story every bit as intricate and engrossing as those that enchanted the mad king . . . Ms. Seale and Mr. Horta have produced a book that is true to the bounty and profusion of this gloriously mongrel collection . . . balance is everywhere in [A] 700-page equivalent of Aladdins Cave of Wonders . . . redresses the 19th-centurys Orientalizing bent and occasional racism, while also reminding us that women, and not just Scheherazade, are at the heart of these wonderful stories . . . This is one present that anybody would be thrilled to open. [Q]uietly momentous . . . new readings can bring to light fresh meaningsand enduring truths. In 2017 Emily Wilson managed that in a new translation of Homers Odyssey, the first by a woman to be published in English. The new Arabian Nightsa selection from a complete edition in the makingdoes the same . . . [Ms. SealelÓ1