Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
* * * * *
Nothing now remains for me but the pleasant task of naming the many friends
and assistants to whom this sixteenth and last volume has been inscribed. The
late Reverend G. Percy Badger strongly objected to the literal translation of
"The Nights" (The Academy, December 8, '81); not the less, however, he
assisted me in its philology with all readiness. Dr. F. Grenfell Baker lent me
ready and valuable aid in the mechanical part of my hard labour. Mr. James F.
Blumhardt, a practical Orientalist and reacher of the Prakrit dialects at
Cambridge, englished for me the eight Gallandian tales (Foreword, Supp. vol.
iii.) from the various Hindostan versions. To Mr. William H. Chandler, of
Pembroke College, Oxford, I have expressed (Supp. vol. iii.) the obligations
due to a kind and generous friend: his experiments with photography will serve
to reconcile the churlishness and retrograde legislation of the great Oxford
Library with the manners and customs of more civilised peoples. Mr. W. A.
Clouston, whose degree is high in "Storiology," supplied my second and third
Supplemental volumes with valuable analogues and variants. Mr. Alexander J.
Cotheal, Consul-General for Nicaragua at New York, sent a valuable MS. to me
across the water, and was persuaded to translate, for my sixth Supplemental
volume, a novel version of the "Tale of Attáf." Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the
British Museum, amongst other favours, kindly revised the Foreword of my sixth
volume. Mr. E. J. W. Gibb, an Orientalist of the modern and realistic school,
who is not deterred by literal translation, permitted me to print his version
of the Turkish Zayn al-Asnám (Supp. vol. iii.) and translations of three tales
which he judged inexpedient to publish (Supp. vol. iv.). M. O. Houdas,
Professeur d' Arabe Vulgaire à l'école des langues Orientales vicantes, Paris,
copied for me the Arabic text of Zayn al-Asnám and the whole MS. used by MM.
Chavis and Cazotte: he also obligingly assisted me in overcoming the various
difficulties of a crabbed and imperfect text. My friend Mr. W. F. Kirby
appended to volume x. of "The Nights" (proper) his most valuable contributions
to the bibliology of the work with its various imitations and a table showing
the contents of the principal editions and translations of "The Nights": he
also enriched my Supplemental volumes v. and vi. with his excellent
annotations. Mr. Kingsbury (and Notcutt) photographed for my use 400 and odd
pages of the Wortley-Montague MS., and proved how easy it was to produce a
perfect fac-simile of the whole. Mr. George Lewis gave me the soundest advice
touching legal matters and Mr. Philip M. Justice was induced to take an active
interest in the "Household Edition." The eminent Orientalist, Dr. Pertsch,
Librarian of the Grand-Ducal Collection, Saxe-Gotha, in lively contrast to my
countrymen of the Bodleian, offered to send me the two volumes of a valuable
MS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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