The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night is a book by British writer Richard Francis Burton. This is the first of seventeen volumes that Burton translated from the One Thousand and One Nights (the Arabian Nights) – a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age which use the framing device of the ruler Shahryār being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade, with one tale told over each night of storytelling. Often criticised for its archaic and strange language and a focus on sexuality, Burton's translation has also been praised for the former with British historian Robert Irwin saying that the book 'can certainly be recommended to anyone wishing to increase their word-power'. The books were privately printed at the time owing to the sexual imagery in them. Volume 1 includes the following stories: Story Of King Shahryar and His Brother; Tale of the Bull and the Ass; Tale of the Trader and the Jinni; The Fisherman and the Jinni; Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban; Story of King Sindibad and His Falcon; Tale of the Husband and the Parrot; Tale of the Prince and the Ogress; Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince; The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad; Tale of the Three Apples; Tale of Nur Al-din Ali and his Son; The Hunchback’s Tale; and, The Barber’s Tale of Himself.
