The Thousand and One Nights, or The Arabian Nights Arabic Alf laylah wa laylah, Collection of largely Middle Eastern and Indian stories of uncertain date and authorship. The frame story, in which the vengeful King Shahryar’s plan to marry and execute a new wife each day is foiled by the resourceful Scheherazade, is probably Indian; the tales with which Scheherazade beguiles Shahryar, postponing and eventually averting her execution, come from India, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and possibly Greece. It is now believed that the collection is a composite work originally transmitted orally and developed over a period of several centuries. The first known reference to it dates to the 9th century. The first European translation was published in the early 18th century. Sir Richard Burton’s Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885–88) has become the best-known English translation. Its tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sindbad the Sailor have become widely familiar in the West.
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