Les mille et une nuits


Les mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français, published in 12 volumes between 1704 and 1717, was the first European version of The Thousand and One Nights tales.
The French translation by Antoine Galland derived from an Arabic text of the Syrian recension of the medieval work as well as from other sources. It included stories not found in the original Arabic manuscripts — the so-called "orphan tales" — such as the famous "Aladdin" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", which first appeared in print in Galland's collection. Literary scholars Ruth B. Bottigheimer and Paulo Lemos Horta have argued that Hanna Diyab should be understood as the original author of some of the orphan tales, and even that several of them, including Aladdin, were partly inspired by Diyab's own life.
Immensely popular at the time of initial publication by the house of the late,
and enormously influential later, Galland's published tales were supplemented by subsequent volumes, introduced using Galland's name - although some stories were produced by others at the behest of a publisher wanting to capitalize on the popularity of Galland's work.

History

Galland had come across a manuscript of "The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor" in Constantinople during the 1690s and in 1701 he published his French translation of it. Its success encouraged him to embark on a translation of a 14th-century Syrian manuscript of tales from The Thousand and One Nights. The first two volumes of this work, under the title Les mille et une nuit, appeared in 1704, with volumes three to seven published in 1705 and 1706. Galland translated two more stories, but not enough for another complete volume. Frustrated, Galland's publisher Claude Barbin published these two along with two of François Pétis de la Croix's translations of the Turkish Ferec baʿd eş-şidde as the eighth volume in 1709. This outraged Galland, who switched publishers for all subsequent volumes.
Galland translated the first part of his work solely from the Syrian manuscript, but in 1709 he was introduced to a Syrian Christian—a Maronite from Aleppo whom he called Youhenna (“Hanna”) Diab. Galland's diary records that he met Hanna through Paul Lucas, a French traveler who had used him as an interpreter brought him to Paris. Hanna recounted 14 stories to Galland from memory and Galland chose to write them down. At the end of the day, he included seven of them in his books. These are the tales called "Orphan tales" and are actually not translations but new additions directly written by Galland after what he heard from Diab. These new stories include Aladin and Ali Baba. For example, Galland's diary tells that the version of "Aladdin" that he wrote was made in the winter of 1709–10. It was included in his volumes IX and X, published in 1710. The final two volumes were published posthumously in 1717.
Galland adapted his translation to the taste of the times. The immediate success the tales enjoyed was partly due to the vogue for fairy stories—in French, contes de fees—which had been started in France in the 1690s by Galland's friend Charles Perrault. Galland was also eager to conform to the literary canons of the era. He cut many of the erotic passages out along with all of the poetry. This caused Sir Richard Burton to refer to "Galland's delightful abbreviation and adaptation" which "in no wise represent the eastern original."
Galland's translation was greeted with immense enthusiasm and was soon further translated into many other European languages:
  • English
  • German
  • Italian
  • Dutch
  • Russian
  • Polish
These produced a wave of imitations and the widespread 18th century fashion for oriental tales.

Contents

Volume 1

Les Mille et une Nuits
  • "L'Ane, le Boeuf et le Laboureur"
  • "Fable de Chien et du Boeuf"
  • "Le Marchand et le Génie"
  • "Histoire du premier Vieillard-Baron et de la Biche"
  • "Histoire du second Vieillard et des deux Chiens noirs"
  • "Histoire du Pècheur"
  • "Histoire du Roi grec et du Medecin Douban"
  • "Histoire du Mari et du Perroquet"
  • "Histoire du Vizir puni"
  • "Histoire du jeune Roi des iles Noires"
  • "Histoire de trois Calenders, fils de Roi, et de cinq dames de Bagdad"

Volume 2

  • "Histoire du premier Calender, fils de Roi"
  • "Histoire du second Calender, fils de Roi"
  • "Histoire de l'Envieux et de l'Envie"
  • "Histoire du troisième Calender, fils de Roi"
  • "Histoire de Zobéide"
  • "Histoire d'Amine"

Volume 3

  • "Histoire de Sindbad le Marin"
  • *"Premier voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • *"Deuxieme voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • *"Troisième voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • *"Quatrième voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • *"Cinquième voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • *"Sixième voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • *"Septième et dernier voyage de Sindbad le marin"
  • "Les Trois Pommes"
  • "Histoire de la dame massacree et du jeune homme son mari"
  • "Histoire de Noureddin Ali, et de Bedreddin Hassan"

Volume 4

  • "Suite de l'Histoire de Noureddin Ali, et de Bedreddin Hassan"
  • "Histoire du petit Bossu"
  • "Histoire que raconta le Marchand chretien"
  • "Histoire racontée par le pourvoyeur du sultan de Casgar"
  • "Histoire racontée par le médecin juif"
  • "Histoire que raconta le Tailleur"

Volume 5

  • "Suite de l'Histoire que raconta le Tailleur"
  • "Histoire du Barbier"
  • *"Histoire du premier Frere du Barbier"
  • *"Histoire du second Frere du Barbier"
  • *"Histoire du troisieme Frere du Barbier"
  • *"Histoire du quatrieme Frere du Barbier"
  • *"Histoire du cinquieme Frere du Barbier"
  • *"Histoire du sixieme Frere du Barbier"
  • "Histoire d'Aboulhassan Ali Ebn Becar et de Schemselnihar, favorite du calife Haroun-al-Raschid"

Volume 6

  • "Suite de l'histoire de la Princesse de la Chine"
  • "Histoire de Marzavan avec la suite de celle de Camaralzaman"
  • "Séparation du Prince Camaralzaman d'avec la Princesse Badoure"
  • "Histoire de la Princesse Badoure apres la separation du Prince Camaralzaman"
  • "Suite de l'histoire du Prince Camaralzaman, depuis sa separation d'avec la Princesse Badoure"
  • "Histoire des Princes Amgiad et Assad"
  • "Le Prince Assad arrete en entrant dans la ville des Mages"
  • "Histoire du Prince Amgiad & d'une dame de la ville des Mages"
  • "Suite de l'Histoire du Prince Assad"

Volume 7

  • "Histoire de Noureddin et de la belle Persienne"
  • "Histoire de Beder, prince de Perse, et de Giauhare, princesse du royaume du Samandal"

Volume 8

  • "Histoire de Ganem, Fils d'Abou Ayoub, surmomme l'Esclave d'Amour"
  • "Histoire du prince Zein Alasnam et du roi des Génies"
  • "Histoire de Codadad et de ses frères"
  • "Histoire de la princesse Deryabar"

Volume 9

  • "Histoire du dormeur éveillé"
  • "Histoire d'Aladdin ou la Lampe merveilleuse"

Volume 10

  • "Suite de l'Histoire d'Aladdin ou la Lampe merveilleuse"
  • "Les avantures de Calife Haroun Alraschid"
  • "Histoire de l'Aveugle Baba-Alidalla"
  • "Histoire de Sidi Nouman"
  • "Histoire de Cogia Hassan Alhababbal"

Volume 11

  • "Suite de l'Histoire de Cogia Hassan Alhababbal"
  • "Histoire d'Ali-Baba et de quarante voleurs exterminés par une esclave"
  • "Histoire d'Ali Cogia, Marchand de Bagdad"
  • "Histoire du Cheval enchanté"

Volume 12

  • "Histoire du prince Ahmed et de la fee Pari-Banou"
  • "Histoire des deux Soeurs jalouses de leur cadette"

Influence

In a 1936 essay, Jorge Luis Borges wrote:
Another fact is undeniable. The most famous and eloquent encomiums of The Thousand and One Nights—by Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey, Stendhal, Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Newman—are from readers of Galland's translation. Two hundred years and ten better translations have passed, but the man in Europe or the Americas who thinks of the Thousand and One Nights thinks, invariably, of this first translation. The Spanish adjective milyunanochesco ... has nothing to do with the erudite obscenities of Burton or Mardrus, and everything to do with Antoine Galland's bijoux and sorceries.

Editions

First publication

  • 1704–1717: Les mille et une nuit, contes arabes traduits en François, par M. Galland, Paris: la Veuve Claude Barbin, In-12. 12 vols.
  • *Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 = 1704–1705, Paris: la Veuve Claude Barbin
  • *Vol. 7 = 1706, Paris: la Veuve Claude Barbin
  • *Vol. 8 = 1709, Paris: la Boutique de Claude Barbin, chez la veuve Ricoeur
  • *Vols. 9, 10 = 1712, Paris: Florentin Delaulne
  • *Vols. 11, 12 = 1717, Lyon: Briasson

Subsequent editions

  • The longest volume in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade series is Les Mille et Une Nuits I, II et III, at 3,504 pages.
  • Les mille et une nuits as translated by Galland