The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night : Appendix

Memorandum

I make no apology for the number and extent of bibliographical and other lists given in this Appendix: they may cumber the book but they are necessary to complete my design. This has been to supply throughout the ten volumes the young Arabist and student of Orientalism and Anthropology with such assistance as I can render him; and it is my conviction that if with the aid of this version he will master the original text of the “Thousand Nights and a Night,” he will find himself at home amongst educated men in Egypt and Syria, Najd and Mesopotamia, and be able to converse with them like a gentleman; not, as too often happens in Anglo- India, like a “Ghoráwálá” (groom). With this object he will learn by heart what instinct and inclination suggest of the proverbs and instances, the verses, the jeux d’esprit and especially the Koranic citations scattered about the text; and my indices will enable him to hunt up the tale or the verses which he may require for quotation wven when writing an ordinary letter to a “native” correspondent. Thus he will be spared the wasted labour of wading through volumes in order to pick up a line.

The following is the list of indices:—

Appendix I.

Index to the Tales in the ten Volumes.
Alphabetical Table of the Notes (Anthropological, etc.) prepared by F. Steingass, Ph.D.
Alphabetical Table of First Lines (metrical portion) in English and Arabic, prepared by Dr. Steingass.
Tables of Contents of the various Arabic texts.
1. The Unfinished Calcutta Edition (1814–18).
2. The Breslau Text (1825–43) from Mr. Payne’s Version.
3. The MacNaghten or Turner–Macan Text (A.D. 1839–42) and the Bulak Edition (A.H. 1251 = A.D. 1835–36), from Mr. Payne’s Version.
4. The same with Mr. Lane’s and my Version.

Appendix II.

Contributions to the Bibliography of the Thousand and One Nights, and their Imitations, with a Table shewing the contents of the principal editions and translations of The Nights. By W. F. Kirby, Author of “Ed–Dimiryaht, and Oriental Romance”; “The New Arabian Nights,” &c.