The Thousand And One Nights The Harvard Classics Volume 16 Eliot by Eliot, Charles W. 1834-1926 9781342180568, 1342180569 instant download after payment.

The main frame story concerns a
Persian king and his new bride. Upon discovering his wife's infidelity,
the king, Shahryar, has her executed and then declares all women to be
unfaithful. He begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute
each one the next morning. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to
provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's
daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly
agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the
king a tale, but does not end it. The king is thus forced to postpone
her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon
as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and
the king, eager to hear the conclusion, postpones her execution once
again. So it goes on for 1,001 nights. Some of the best-known stories of
The Nights include "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves" and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor."
Edward William Lane's translation of the One Thousand and One Nights
first saw light in monthly parts in the years 1838 to 1840, and was
published in three volumes in 1840. A revised edition came out in 1859.
One review comments, "... Lane's version is markedly superior to any
other that has appeared in English, if superiority is allowed to be
measured by accuracy and an honest and unambitious desire to reproduce
the authentic spirit as well as the letter of the original."
The Harvard Classics edition contains stories from The Thousand and One
Nights: Nights 1 - 18, 24 - 36, 537 - 578 (including the Seven Voyages
of Sinbad), and 738 - 756; also contains in an appendix the story of
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.