texts, and also stated when he followed either of them in preference to the Cairo text. Such variations and deviations I have collected in a series of "Notes on the Text" at the end of each volume of this edition, for the use of students who read the Arabic with the aid of this translation. These critical notes are referred to by numerals, in distinction from the ordinary references to the explanatory notes at the foot of the page.

Besides removing the critical notes to the end of each volume, for the use of Arabic students, I have transferred the short explanatory notes from the end of each chapter to the foot of the page. In former editions all the notes, critical, explanatory, and digressive, were accumulated at the end of each chapter, to the inconvenience of the reader. The great bulk of these notes consisted in very full disquisitions on most branches of Mohammadan religion, superstitions, laws, customs, literature, dress, indeed nearly all departments of Mohammadan or Arabian life, especially as observed in Cairo. The great value of these ample notes, as a kind of encyclopædia of Muslim life and manners, has been universally recognized; but they are better read as a whole and in systematic order than in the form of notes scattered here and there at the ends of a score of chapters in three volumes, and such a systematic collection of them is found in the separate volume entitled "Arabian Society in the Middle Ages," which I arranged and edited many years ago. Of this collection Sir Richard Burton, who may be acquitted of any undue admiration, as well as of any servile regard for grammar, observed that "the student who adds the notes of Lane ('Arabian Society') to mine will know as much of the Moslem East and more than many Europeans who have spent half their lives in Orient lands." These long notes or rather excursus were out of place in a

story-book, however illustrative of Arabian life, and they are omitted in the present edition. Even the shorter notes, in explanation of the text, were too elaborate and sometimes redundant: I have therefore included only such as are really necessary for the understanding of the tales, and have given them in the most concise form, yet in Lane's words. When I have added anything the addition is indicated by square brackets. I believe that the present arrangement of the notes will be found much more convenient than the original plan both by students and by general readers.

The only other alteration is in the spelling of the Arabic and Persian names. When Lane adopted his system, the old oo and ee for the long vowels ū and i were not yet obsolete in England, and long continued to be used in India. This mode of transliteration has been so completely discarded that no apology is necessary for abandoning it in this edition. No long marks or accents or diacritical dots are used, since they annoy the ordinary reader without really teaching him the pronunciation. For the benefit of those who wish to know precisely how the names are spelt in Arabic, a full transliteration, with long marks and dotted letters, as well as the English translations of the names, is given in the Index and Glossary. Arabic scholars will notice that I have not interfered with Lane's rule of employing both a and e to represent a single Arabic vowel (fath) as modified by consonants, and similarly u and o (damm); but in no case (except in a few familiar words) have I allowed e to represent the i (kesr) of the Arabic, or ō the aw, as the original system did, in conformity with Cairene pronunciation, but with risk of confusion to the student.

The division into chapters, though it forms no part of the Arabic text, has been retained, but I have added in the headlines the number of the Nights

contained in each chapter. The length of a Night
varies greatly in the original Arabic: for example, the
first hundred nights (without the Introduction) fill 213
pages of the Cairo edition; the second hundred, 149,
the fifth only 94 pages. Each story ends in the course
of a night, not at its close, for the obvious reason of
preserving Shahrazad's life. The division of the
Nights in the original and Lane's omission of the
❝tedious interruptions" of the stories are referred to
on p. 17 of this volume.

In other respects this edition faithfully reproduces
the text of the edition of 1859, which was laboriously
collated, even to a comma, by my father, Edward
Stanley Poole, with Lane's own annotated copy of the
first edition. Beyond very careful collation, my father
added only a few brief notes, chiefly historical, to his
uncle's work. Part of his preface, which was based upon
Lane's original preface, is incorporated in brackets in
the Review at the end of vol. iv, where the sources
and history of the "Thousand and One Nights" are
considered. Later researches have contributed some-
thing to our knowledge of the sources, but very little
to the clearing up of the history; but such new lights
as have been thrown upon the subject are referred to
in my additions to the Review. The bibliography of
the "Nights," in its manuscripts, texts, translations,
and critical notices, has been admirably set forth by
M. Victor Chauvin (Bibliographie des Ouvrages Arabes,
Parts IV and V).

Two stories, not included in Lane's translation
because they were not in his Arabic text, are appended
to this edition in deference more to their universal
popularity than to any title to belong to the book of
the "Thousand and One Nights." They occur in no
manuscript or printed text of the collected tales, and
though M. Zotenberg discovered an Arabic MS. of
"Ala-ed-din," no one has yet lighted upon the original

of Galland's famous story of the "Forty Thieves."
There are many other tales which have as much or
as little right to be regarded as part of the " Nights,"
and which are published in various texts and trans-
lations; but it is generally understood that without
"Aladdin" and "Ali Baba" the "Arabian Nights"
must be held incomplete. The former is reprinted from
the translation I made from M. Zotenberg's Arabic
text for the "Stories from the Arabian Nights," pub-
lished by Messrs. Putnam in 1891, who have also
kindly permitted me to reproduce in substance two
paragraphs from the preface. "Ali Baba" is from
the usual English version after Galland, with only
such emendations as seemed obvious.

WICKLOW,

20th June, 1906

STANLEY LANE-POOLE

The First Sheykh and the Gazelle

The Second Sheykh and the two Black Hounds.

The Third Sheykh and the Mule

The Porter and the Ladies of Baghdad, and the Three Royal

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