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
Captain Burton's object in his annotations is to treat
of subjects which are completely concealed from the multitude. They are
utterly and entirely esoteric, and deal with matters of which books usually
are kept clear. Indeed he has been assured by an Indian officer who had been
40 years in the East, that he was entirely ignorant of the matters revealed in
these Notes. Without these marvellous elucidations the Arabian Nights would
remain only half understood, but by their aid we may know as much of the
Moslems as the Moslems know of themselves.
The Lincoln Gazette, Saturday, October 17th, 1885.
Second Notice.
In bringing out his Arabian Nights Captain Burton has made a bold attempt to
dispense with the middleman the publisher. He has gone straight to the
printer, he himself undertaking the business of distribution. It is time
somebody should be energetic. With curious submission authors go on bearing
their grievances, and sow that others may reap. Whole editions of travels are
issued, and the person most concerned, the author, gets a pittance of £5. And
only the other day Walt Whitman, most illustrious of American poets, and in
the opinion of capable judges the most illustrious man of letters across the
Atlantic, publicly that the profits on his writings for a whole year amounted
to a few dollars. Captain Burton has broken through the bondage, and the
result promises to be highly satisfactory. But he has been threatened with
pains and penalties, one trade journal, the Printing Times and Lithographer,
under the immediate direction of an eminent bookseller, known for his vast
purchases of rare publications, announced that The Arabian Nights would be
suppressed unless its tone and morals were unexceptionable! In short,
publishers are exasperated, and, like the Peers, they do not see the force of
being abolished. The authors, however, who sigh to be independent, must not
take it for granted that the experiment is easy, or likely to be often
successful. In this particular instance it is a case of the Man and the Book.
There is only one Arabian Nights in the world, and only one Captain Burton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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