A fresh translation of the “Arabian Nights” was Lane’s next great work. Instead of the misleading and imperfect translation still, unfortunately, current, he made a version which reproduces the true Oriental impression, informed with knowledge of and insight into the people described. To it he added a vast number of notes, encyclopædic in their range over Arab customs and institutions, and full of interest to all classes of readers. It was published in monthly parts from 1838 to 1840. Next he arranged a valuable series of “Selections from the Koran,” published in 1843. He now entered upon the work which for scholars surpasses all his other efforts, though it is unknown to the general reader. No Arabic-English Lexicon of any value existed: Lane devoted the remainder of his life to filling the void. The language of the Koran was rapidly becoming deteriorated in common speech, and it needed careful study of manuscripts still existing, but watchfully secured from unbelievers, to become truly at home in the classic language. The great Arabic Lexicon, Taj-el-’Aroos, a combination of all preceding lexicons, had to be transcribed throughout, by the aid of a learned Mohammedan, in Cairo, for thirteen years, and then elaborately studied and translated and modified by the aid of all possible authorities. It was Lord Prudhoe’s (afterwards fourth Duke of Northumberland) munificence that first enabled this to be done. In 1842 Lane left England again, accompanied by his wife, a Greek lady whom he married in 1840, and by his sister, Mrs. Poole (author of the “Englishwoman in Egypt”), and he lived as a close student in Cairo till 1849, when he returned to England. After that date he settled at Worthing, entirely devoted to his great work, a worthy successor of Dr. Johnson in his strenuous devotion to his great Dictionary, but in other respects his antithesis. Its publication in eight volumes was not completed at his death, and the last parts were superintended by his nephew, Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, who has written a brief life of his uncle, to which this introduction is greatly indebted. Quiet, gentlemanly, courteous, genial, simple in Christian faith and practice, while admitting the great critical light which Semitic studies throw upon the Bible, earnest and pure-souled, “in his presence a profane or impure speech was an impossibility; yet no one was ever more gentle with that frailty for which the world has no pity.” He died at Worthing, on August 10th, 1876. His name is imperishably written among those of the giants of Arabic scholarship. G. T. B. PREFACE. --- _Cairo, 1835_