Mr. Payne subsequently issued “Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta (1814-18) editions of the Thousand Nights and One Night, not occurring in the other printed texts of the work.” (Three vols., London, 1884.) Of this work, issued, like the other, by the Villon Society, to subscribers only, 750 copies were printed, besides 50 on large paper. The third volume includes indices of all the tales in the four principal printed texts.
Finally we have Sir R. F. Burton’s translation now in its entirety before his subscribers. It is restricted to 1,000 copies. (Why not 1,001?) The five supplementary vols. are to include tales wanting in the Mac. edition, but found in other texts (printed and MS.), while Lady Burton’s popular edition will allow of the free circulation of Sir R. F. Burton’s work among all classes of the reading public.
COLLECTIONS OF SELECTED TALES.
There are many volumes of selections derived from Galland, but these hardly require mention; the following may be noticed as derived from other sources:
1. Caliphs and Sultans, being tales omitted in the usual editions of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Re-written and re-arranged by Sylvanus Hanley, F. L. S., etc., London, 1868; 2nd edition 1870.
Consists of portions of tales chiefly selected from Scott, Lamb, Chavis and Cazotte, Trébutien and Lane; much abridged, and frequently strung together, as follows:—
Nos. 246, 41, 32 (including Nos. 111, 21a, and 89); 9a (including 9aa [which Hanley seems, by the way, to have borrowed from some version which I do not recognise], 22 and 248); 155, 156, 136, 162; Xailoun the Silly (from Cazotte); 132 and 132a; and 169 (including 134 and 135x).
2. Ilâm-en-Nâs. Historical tales and anecdotes of the time of the early Kalîfahs. Translated from the Arabic and annotated by Mrs. Godfrey Clerk, author of “The Antipodes, and Round the World.” London, 1873.
Many of these anecdotes, as is candidly admitted by the authoress in her Preface, are found with variations in the Nights, though not translated by her from this source.
3. The New Arabian Nights. Select tales not included by Galland or Lane. By W. F. Kirby, London, 1882.