An edition of any book not superintended by the author is sometimes regarded with distrust. I would therefore assure the reader that in this instance he may depend even on the punctuation; the whole having been laboriously collated with Mr. Lane's annotated copy, notwithstanding the great delay which this process has occasioned in the printing of the work.
I have called this a complete edition, to distinguish it from two others which have been published without Mr. Lane's notes or his method of writing oriental words, and with other variations from the standard edition. The public appreciation of these notes, and of the advantage of correctly-written foreign words, is, I conceive, proved by the call for the present edition. On the subject of the mode of writing oriental words in European characters, I need say little, for the controversy has well nigh died out. The present generation does not regard antiquated blunders as "the familiar names of childhood," but rather strives to attain accuracy in all things; and those few who still cling to "Mahomet" or "Mahomed" should consistently exhume the forgotten "Mahound" of the Crusades.
The translator's views respecting the origin and literary history of "The Thousand and One Nights" will be found fully expressed in the Review at the end of the third volume. In his original preface, he stated, "The remarks which I here submit to the reader, being written when only one-third of the work to which they principally relate is printed, must unavoidably be more defective than they would be if reserved until a later period. During the progress of the publication I may be enabled to form clearer and more complete views of the several subjects which might with propriety be fully discussed at the head of my translation, and I think it better, therefore, to append at the close of the work many observations which I originally intended to prefix to the first volume." He has therefore wished me to remodel the preface, transferring all portions relating to the subjects in question to the Review, retaining whatever may more properly stand at the commencement of the work, and adding any matter of my own.
The object with which the translation was made is best expressed in the words of Mr. Lane's preface.
"My undertaking to translate anew the Tales of 'The Thousand and One Nights' implies an unfavourable opinion of the version which has so long amused us; but I must express my objections with respect to the latter in plain terms, and this I shall do by means of a few words on the version of Galland, from which it is derived; for to him alone its chief faults are to be attributed. I am somewhat reluctant to make this remark, because several persons, and among them some of high and deserved reputation as Arabic scholars, have pronounced an opinion that his version is an improvement upon the original. That 'The Thousand and One Nights' may be greatly improved, I most readily admit; but as confidently do I assert that Galland has excessively perverted the work. His acquaintance with Arab manners and customs was insufficient to preserve him always from errors of the grossest description, and by the style of his version he has given to the whole a false character, thus sacrificing, in a great measure, what is most valuable in the original work,—I mean its minute accuracy with respect to those peculiarities which distinguish the Arabs from every other nation, not only of the West, but also of the East. Deceived by the vague nature of Galland's version, travellers in Persia, Turkey, and India, have often fancied that the Arabian Tales describe the particular manners of the natives of those countries; but no one who has read them in the original language, having an intimate acquaintance with the Arabs, can be of this opinion: it is in Arabian countries, and especially in Egypt, that we see the people, the dresses, and the buildings, which it describes in almost every case, even when the scene is laid in Persia, in India, or in China.
"Convinced of the truth of this assertion, I consider myself possessed of the chief qualifications for the proper accomplishment of my present undertaking, from my having lived several years in Cairo, associating almost exclusively with Arabs, speaking their language, conforming to their general habits with the most scrupulous exactitude, and received into their society on terms of perfect equality. Since the downfall of the Arab Empire of Baghdád, Cairo has been the chief of Arabian cities: its Memlook Sulṭáns, introduced into Egypt in their youth, naturally adopted, to a great degree, the manners of its native inhabitants, which the 'Osmánlee Turks in later days have but little altered. Cairo is the city in which Arabian manners now exist in the most refined state; and such I believe to have been the case when the present work was composed."
Mr. Lane's first two visits to Egypt were made when, for the last time, Arab manners and customs as they existed in the age of the Arabian Nights could be studied; and his translation was written very shortly after his second return to England. Though some of the tales maybe Indian or Persian in origin, in their present state they exhibit a picture of the manners, modes of thought, and language, of the court and times of the Memlook Sulṭáns of Egypt, which nearly resembled in these points those of the Khaleefehs of Baghdád, or the great Arab Empire. De Sacy and Von Hammer, the two celebrated orientalists who differed widely in opinion as to the origin of the book, agreed that the tales in which the Khaleefeh Hároon Er-Rasheed is introduced (the best, with few exceptions, in the collection) are Egyptian in character. But since the "Modern Egyptians" were described by Mr. Lane, all things in the East have changed, and every day witnesses the decay of some old custom, to be followed by a bastard European imitation. During Mohammad 'Alee's rule, all traces of the state and circumstance of the Memlook court gradually passed away. European dress has displaced oriental costume, cloth of gold, and dresses of honour; European architecture elbows the quaint beauty of the old Arab capital; and the cavalcade of fifty horsemen around a grandee is succeeded by an English carriage that profanes the quiet streets of the city, and frightens away both 'Efreets and their memory. Mr. Lane saw the last of Cairo in its integrity; and he has not overstated his qualifications, as author of the "Modern Egyptians," for the task of translating the Arabian Nights.
Of the copy from which this translation was made, and the method observed in its execution, I may again quote the preface to the first edition. Mr. Lane says,—
"I have taken as my general standard of the original text the Cairo edition lately printed; it being greatly superior to the other printed editions, and probably to every manuscript copy.[1] It appears to agree almost exactly with the celebrated MS. of Von Hammer, than which no copy more copious, I believe, exists; and contains all the tales in the old version except those which, as Von Hammer says, Galland appears to have taken from other works, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, in the Royal Library of Paris. The manuscript from which it was printed was carefully collated and corrected by a very learned man, the sheykh 'Abd-Er-Raḥmán Eṣ-Ṣaftee Esh-Sharḳáwee, who also superintended the progress of the work through the press. But in addition to the value conferred upon it by the corrections of this sheykh, the copy from which the whole of my translation is made, except in a few instances, possesses an advantage which, I believe, renders it incomparably superior to any other now existing: it has been again revised and corrected, and illustrated with numerous manuscript notes, by a person whom I think I may safely pronounce the first philologist of the first Arab college of the present day, the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád Eṭ-Ṭanṭáwee, or, more properly, Eṭ-Ṭanditáee. His notes are chiefly philological, and explanatory of words which do not belong to the classical language; and many of them are of very great assistance to me; though most of them I find unnecessary, from the knowledge of the modern Arabic which I have acquired during my intercourse with the people who speak it. His corrections of the text are numerous; and as they would interest very few persons, I have mentioned but few of them in the notes to my translation, notwithstanding a strong temptation that I felt to do otherwise in order that Arabic scholars might be assisted to judge of the fidelity of my version by comparing it with the text of the Cairo edition.[2] To the pieces of poetry which are interspersed throughout the work he has paid especial attention; not only correcting the errors which he found in them, but also always adding the vowel-points, and generally, commentaries or explanations. Thus I have shewn that I am very greatly indebted to him for his learned labours. I should, however, add, that I have ventured to differ from him in interpreting a few words; having found more appropriate meanings assigned to them by Arabs in parts not visited by him, or such meanings given in printed dictionaries with which he is unacquainted; and I have also corrected a few errors which have escaped his notice.[3] Without the valuable aid which he has afforded me, I would not have attempted the translation; nor with it would I have done so were it not for the advantage that I derive from my having lived among Arabs. No translator can always be certain that, from twenty or more significations which are borne by one Arabic word, he has selected that which his author intended to convey; but, circumstanced as I am, I have the satisfaction of feeling confident that I have never given, to a word or phrase in this work, a meaning which is inconsistent with its presenting faithful pictures of Arab life and manners.
"I have thought it right to omit such tales, anecdotes, &c., as are comparatively uninteresting or on any account objectionable. In other words, I insert nothing that I deem greatly inferior in interest to the tales in the old version. Certain passages which, in the original work, are of an objectionable nature, I have slightly varied; but in doing this, I have been particularly careful to render them so as to be perfectly agreeable with Arab manners and customs. It was originally my intention to omit almost the whole of the poetry, thinking that the loss of measure and rhyme, and the impossibility of preserving the examples of paronomasia and some other figures with which they abound, would render translations of them generally intolerable to the reader: but afterwards I reflected that the character of the work would be thus greatly altered; and its value, as illustrating Arab manners and feelings, much diminished. I therefore determined to preserve a considerable number of select pieces, chosen either for their relative merits or because required by the context. The number of those comprised in the first volume of my translation is nearly half of the number contained in the corresponding portion of the original work; but in several cases I have omitted one or more verses of a piece as unsuitable, or for some other reason; and in a few instances I have given only the first verse or the first couplet. These pieces of poetry are not in general to be regarded as the compositions of the author or authors of the work: they appear to be mostly borrowed from others, and many of them are taken from the works of celebrated poets.—To avoid the tedious interruptions which occur in the original at the close of each Night, I have divided the translation into chapters, each of which consists of one tale, or of two or more tales connected one with another, and have merely mentioned the Night with which each chapter commences, and that with which it terminates.