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1001 Nights Resource by Michael Lundell

Homepage

A Brief Introduction to the 1001 Nights

A Historical Timeline of the 1001 Nights

A Comprehensive Bibliography of Academic Articles and Books on the Nights

A Bibliography of Related Readings

Versions of the 1001 Nights Online

Versions of the 1001 Nights Online & Elsewhere

image of Syrian Manuscript in Biblioteque Nationale in Paris

1001 Nights Online

There is so much junk online it's amazing and so little helpful information yet there purports to be a lot of helpful information and little junk.

Kind of the catch 22 of life.

Anyway, for those wishing to have a first copy of the 1001 Nights that is fairly accessible I would strongly suggest you get a paperback copy of Dawood's English translation from Penguin. It's short, contains a good selection of core stories and is well written.

It does have many problems of course (dissing Richard Burton and then copying Richard Burton, adding stories that Dawood himself says he heard from friends or family (The Historical Fart being one), and is a very very small amount of what is actually out there)... but it's a good intro, and it was mine, besides the children's books I had as a baby.

The best part about the 1001 Nights is all of their versions in hardcover and all of the different bound collections you can buy. I found a Burton one in great condition for $200 at a used bookstore which contains all 16 volumes in great font and nice hardcovers.

You can also buy old collectable copies, something I'm not into, but these range in the $1000's of dollars and may not be the most reputable versions. I've found a lot of weird funky hard cover versions on ebay for cheap with crazy artwork, unknown authors, etc. I like these the best.

Online you can find the text too but it's just not the same as having a beautiful hardcover book with illustrations and decorations. Online it's just boring old text with someone putting ads for soap or something.

Other websites have public domain translations but they are sorely lacking and many of them just slap up the text and put google ads all over the place or have pop-ups and other crap. Or they are incomplete.

I'll try to find some good free copies online and what I have is below (link opens in new window):

Sir Richard F. Burton translation (without censorship)
http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/index.htm

Site also has versions by Jonathan Scott, John Payne, Andrew Lang, Edward Lane, and E. Dixon.

This guy's site is nice, no ads and an easy to read format. He also has some great information on Burton and the Nights and links to other versions online.

Another site with usable text:

Andrew Lang - Project Gutenberg (a simple notepad like text version of it).
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/128

I'd recommend those two sites which cover all that's available in English that is worth reading for the scholar and that is in the public domain. For other versions you'd have to buy them new,etc. I'm not sure what's available in non-English versions but there appears to be a lot of funky copies out there. A real world literature. Maybe the only piece of literature that can truly claim that title.

for inquiries (non-commercial only please):