The style of the 'Nights' is hardly ever studied, often it is slovenly to a degree sug gested by none of the translations, meant, like its abounding poetical tags, to be spoken or chanted, rather than read. Character studies, such as the admirably comic barber, El Samet, are very rare. But there is a verve and fire of imagination in the stories that has defied even inept translators to quench, though the inter est that these tales awaken in a western man or boy, Oriental scholar, or plain reader, must at best be different from that which they arouse in those to the manner born when heard on Arabian nights.
First to introduce the 'Nights' to western readers was the French traveler, Abbe Gal land. His adaptation and transmutation of the manners and speech of Cairo to those of Versailles, appearing in successive volumes from 1704 to 1717, won immediate popularity. Its first English echo was Addison's retelling of the story of Alnashar in the Spectator of 13 Nov. 1712. The popular English versions of the (Nights) are humbler adaptations of Gal land's paraphrase, whatever their pretention of °revision° and new translation from the Arabic. This was first seriously attempted by the Irish novelist Henry Torrens, who issued in 1838 a translation of the first 50 'Nights,' made at Simla and, though abounding in errors, conveying more of the spirit of the East to English readers than does any of those that have followed. In 1839 the distinguished Egyptologist Lane at Cairo issued the first volume of a translation finished in 1842, and Torrens abandoned his work; unfortunately, for, though Lane knew far more Arabic, he had less imagination and was more attracted by the sociological interest of the
It is least happy in its rendering of the sim plest folk-tales. Sir Richard Burton knew more of the (Nights) and of the life they de pict than any of his predecessors. His transla tion (1886-88) is also complete for the manu script selected. Six supplementary volumes contain stories found in others only. Burton's notes bring together a vast deal of curious in formation, hardly to be found elsewhere, but the English reflects the extreme eccentricity of the translator, even to the point of perversity; and though his work was pruned for a house hold edition, of matter that could not be pub lished, it has not become popular. The judg ment of the multitude is not altogether unen lightened in continuing to abide faithful to the Gallic English of the adapters of Galland's adaptation, so long as their desire is less to know of Arabian manners or Egivptian ways than to be made fancy free. For such no literal translation can serve, least of all in case of the frequent lapses into verse. Some adaptation there must be. English readers have still to await a satisfactory re-creator of 'The Arabian Nights.' The stories in any of their versions are of very varying interest. Beside All Baba and Aladdin, which may lack a bibliographer's title to inclusion but have every other, it is enough to recall the names of Sindbad the Sailor, of Abou-Hassan, the Sleeper Awakened, of the scapegrace All of Cairo, of Noureddin and Bedreddin, of Hassan of Balsora, Joudar, Alishir, Zumroud, Camaralzaman, Badoura, Gulnare, Marouf, prince of ready-tongued im postors, the Hunchback and El Samet, the bar ber of unquenchable garrulity; of the gracious Peri Banou, of the Porter and the Three Ladies of Bagdad; of the Magic Horse, the Magic Carpet and the City of Brass, to realize how large is the debt of English literature and English readers to (The Arabian Nights.' They have made it hard to think in terms of historical reality of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid.