1811 The Arabian Nights Entertainments

Description

Fine Binding, First Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Scarce, Signed Binding

The first edition of this work to be translated by Jonathan Scott. Two editions by Scott were issued by this publisher in 1811, Lowndes noting that this is the more desirable larger format "post octavo, with plates by Smirke", but that there was another smaller unillustrated "demy octavo". 

Complete in six volumes. Beautifully bound in half straight grain morocco by Morrell.

'Arabian Nights', or 'One Thousand and One Nights', is a collection of folk tales from the Middle East. It was collected over centuries, with the roots of the tales being traced from Greek, Indian, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Jewish folklore.

The tales are being told by Scheherazade to the King Shahryar, in a bid to save her life. After discovering his wife was cheating on him, he killed her, and vowed to marry a new virgin every day, and then behead them the next. In this vein, he had killed one-thousand and one women before marrying Scheherazade. Scheherazade entices the King by telling him a story on their first night together, pausing halfway through as the sun came up. The King, being absorbed by the story, keeps Scheherazade alive, eager to hear more from her.

Illustrated with a frontispiece to each volume. Collated, complete.

The illustrations after Robert Smirke, re-engraved for this edition, are taken from a series Smirke first executed nearly a decade earlier and which first appeared in Edward Forster's translation of 1802

Edited and translated by English orientalist Jonathan Scott, who made a substantial revision of Antoine Galland's translation of 1704-17, the first in a Western language.

With the inscription of Charles H. Bedford, Glasgow, 19th June, 1919, to a front blank of volume I.