(ARABIAN NIGHTS). LANE, EDWARD WILLIAM, Translator.

THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, COMMONLY CALLED, IN ENGLAND, THE ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.

(London: John Murray, 1859). 222 x 149 mm (8 3/4 x 5 7/8"). Three volumes. Edited by Edward Stanley Poole. "A new edition from a copy annotated by the translator."

ELEGANT CONTEMPORARY GREEN PEBBLE-GRAIN MOROCCO, ELABORATELY GILT, BY M. PATERSON OF EDINBURGH (his ticket on front pastedown), cover with alcove design, the frames with ornate floral decoration, the top and bottom panels with a semi-circular central portion formed by multiple gilt rules, the whole enclosing a large central urn filled with flowers, spines gilt in double-ruled compartments with intricate fan-style cornerpieces and large complex central fleuron, densely gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Extra engraved title page and about 700 wood engravings in the text from designs by William Harvey. For the binder: Ramsden p. 213. Spines just slightly and uniformly sunned toward a pleasing olive green, inner half inch of the front free endpaper of volume one glued to the pastedown (and slightly torn), small additional defects, otherwise A FINE COPY OF AN EXTREMELY PRETTY SET, the decorative original binding with bright gilt and only trivial wear, and the text with virtually no signs of use.

Lane's version of the "Arabian Nights" was originally issued in 32 parts from 1838-41; the present item is a new edition of what is generally acknowledged to be the first accurate translation of the classic story, updated from the translator's notes by Lane's nephew Edward Poole, and offered here in a handsome binding. Lane (1801-76) went to Egypt as a young man to improve his health, and he arrived at a time when serious European study of the region had just begun. He was soon caught up in the culture and became an accepted part of the society he was studying. His first work was an elaborately detailed description of Egypt and its people, and his last a monumental Arabic dictionary 25 years in the making. In between he did the present translation of the "Arabian Nights." His translation omitted some of the stories that in England would have been thought too vulgar, but he was well qualified to enrich the book with notes that give an understanding of Muslim life and that restore something close to the original flavor of the tales, compared to earlier English versions based on the French. The illustrations here represent one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by Harvey (1796-1866), a famous pupil of Bewick and characterized by Houfe as the most popular British illustrator of the 1840s. Edinburgh binder and bookseller Maurice Paterson is listed in the Scottish Book Trade Index as being in business for 44 years, from 1831 to 1875. He moved to the Broughton Street address listed on our ticket in 1857. But the firm could not have done many bindings because their ticket is not in Spawn & Kinsella, and ABPC seems to record no bindings by them since at least 1975. Whatever the case, their work on the present set is absolutely first rate. (ST11462a-259)