First published as a Norton paperback: New York : W W Norton & Co Inc, 1995

Introduction -- World of the Arabian Nights -- Dissemination and manuscripts -- Printed editions -- Mahdi edition -- Past translations -- Present translation -- Guiding principles -- Prose -- Verse -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Note on the transliteration -- Map : the World of the Nights -- Arabian Nights -- Foreword -- Prologue : The Story of King Shabrayar and Shahrazad, his Vizier's Daughter -- Tale of the Ox and the Donkey -- Tale of the Merchant and his Wife -- Story Of The Merchant And The Demon -- First Old Man's Tale -- Second Old Man's Tale -- Story Of The Fisherman And The Demon -- Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban -- Tale of the Husband and the Parrot -- Tale of the King's Son and the She-Ghoul -- Tale of the Enchanted King -- Story Of The Porter And The Three Ladies -- First Dervish's Tale -- Second Dervish's Tale -- Tale of the Envious and the Envied -- Third Dervish's Tale -- Tale of the First Lady, the Mistress of the House -- Tale of the Second Lady, the Flogged One -- Story Of The Three Apples -- Story of the Two Viziers, Nur al-Din Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri -- Story Of The Hunchback -- Christian Broker's Tale : the Young Man with the Severed Hand and the Girl -- Steward's Tale : the Young Man from Baghdad and Lady Zubaida's Maid -- Jewish Physician's Tale : the Young Man from Mosual and the Murdered Girl -- Tailor's Tale : the Lame Young Man from Baghdad and the Barber -- Barber's Tale -- Tale of the First Brother, the Hunchbacked Tailor -- Tale of the Second Brother, Baqbaqa the Paraplegic -- Tale of the Third Brother, Faqfaq the Blind -- Tale of the Fourth Brother, the One-Eyed Butcher -- Tale of the Fifth Brother, the Cropped of Ears -- Tale of the Sixth Brother, the Cropped of Lips -- Story Of Nur Al-Din Ali Ibn-Bakkar And The Slave-Girl Shams Al-Nahar -- Story Of The Slave-Girl Anis al-Jalis And Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Khaqan -- Story Of Jullanar Of The Sea -- Translator's postscript

Overview: Husain Haddawy's rapturously received translation of The Arabian Nights is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. These stories (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories), told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse, first reached the West around 1700. They fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it. Collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from vivacious erotica, animal fables, and adventure fantasies to pointed Sufi tales, the stories of The Arabian Nights provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory. The present new translation by Husain Haddawy is of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript in the BibliothEque Nationale in Paris, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and is considered to be the most authentic. This early version is without the embellishments and additions that appear in later Indian and Egyptian manuscripts, on which all previous English translations were based

In English; translated from the Arabic