Author of “Ed-Dimiryaht: an Oriental Romance,” “The New Arabian Nights,” &c.
The European editions of the Thousand and One Nights, even excluding the hundreds of popular editions which have nothing specially noticeable about them, are very numerous; and the following Notes must, I am fully aware, be incomplete, though they will, perhaps, be found useful to persons interested in the subject. Although I believe that editions of most of the English, French, and German versions of any importance have passed through my hands, I have not had an opportunity of comparing many in other languages, some of which at least may be independent editions, not derived from Galland. The imitations and adaptations of The Nights are, perhaps, more numerous than the editions of The Nights themselves, if we exclude mere reprints of Galland; and many of them are even more difficult of access.
In the following Notes, I have sometimes referred to tales by their numbers in the Table.
GALLAND’S MS. AND TRANSLATION.
The first MS. of The Nights known in Europe was brought to Paris by Galland at the close of the 17th century; and his translation was published in Paris, in twelve small volumes, under the title of “Les Mille et une Nuit: Contes Arabes, traduits en Francois par M. Galland.” These volumes appeared at intervals between 1704 and 1717. Galland himself died in 1715, and it is uncertain how far he was responsible for the latter part of the work. Only the first six of the twelve vols. are divided into Nights, vol. 6 completing the story of Camaralzaman, and ending with Night 234. The Voyages of Sindbad are not found in Galland’s MS., though he has intercalated them as Nights 69–90 between Nos. 3 and 4. It should be mentioned, however, that in some texts (Bresl., for instance) No. 133 is placed much earlier in the series than in others.
The stories in Galland’s last six vols. may be divided into two classes, viz., those known to occur in genuine texts of The Nights, and those which do not. To the first category belong Nos. 7, 8, 59, 153 and 170; and some even of these are not found in Galland’s own MS., but were derived by him from other sources. The remaining tales (Nos. 191–198) do not really belong to The Nights; and, strange to say, although they are certainly genuine Oriental tales, the actual originals have never been found. I am inclined to think that Galland may, perhaps, have written and adapted them from his recollection of stories which he himself heard related during his own residence in the East, especially as most of these tales appear to be derived rather from Persian or Turkish than from Arabian sources.
The following Preface appeared in vol. 9 which I translate from Talander’s German edition, as the original is not before me:
“The two stories with which the eighth volume concludes do not properly belong to the Thousand and One Nights. They were added and printed without the previous knowledge of the translator, who had not the slightest idea of the trick that had been played upon him until the eighth volume was actually on sale. The reader must not, therefore, be surprised that the story of the Sleeper Awakened, which commences vol. 9, is written as if Scheherazade had related it immediately after the story of Ganem, which forms the greater part of vol. 8. Care will be taken to omit these two stories in a new edition, as not belonging to the work.”
It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that when the new edition was actually published, subsequently to Galland’s death, the condemned stories were retained, and the preface withdrawn; though No. 170 still reads as if it followed No. 8.
The information I have been able to collect respecting the disputed tales is very slight. I once saw a MS. advertised in an auction catalogue (I think that of the library of the late Prof. H. H. Wilson) as containing two of Galland’s doubtful tales, but which they were was not stated. The fourth and last volume of the MS. used by Galland is lost; but it is almost certain that it did not contain any of these tales (compare Payne, ix. 265 note).