Often known in English as The Arabian Nights, this collection of stories was compiled in Arabic during the period known as the Islamic Golden Age, which stretched from the 9th to the 14th centuries CE.

The stories of The Thousand and One Nights are drawn from three distinct cultures, Indian, Persian and Arab. Full of magic and wonder, they transport us to an exciting world of powerful djinns, crafty sorcerers, clever women and fearless men, of kings and courtesans, merchants and thieves. They also offer us a glimpse into the manners and customs of the age in which they were written.

The main purpose of the stories is entertainment rather than moral instruction, and the tales are written in a style that is simple and straightforward, in language that is closer to everyday speech than to the refined, literary idiom of classical Arab literature. These factors led to its rejection by the Arabic literary establishment, which never accepted it as a serious literary work. Ironically, it were these same factors that led to its great popularity, not just in the Middle-east, but across the world. Over the last two hundred years, The Thousand and One Nights has been translated again and again and has come to occupy the status of a world classic.

The core of The Thousand and One Nights is derived from a lost collection of Persian fairy tales called Hazar Afsaneh (A Thousand Stories). This was translated into Arabic about 850 CE. The Arab historian and traveller Al-Masudi (c. 896–956) mentions this book in his great encyclopaedic work Muruj al-Dhahab wa-Ma'adin al-Jawhar. He writes that the book was popularly called ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ and gives a summary of its prologue. This prologue, which scholars have traced back to Indian folklore, also contains the frame story for the work. The prologue to The Thousand and One Nights and its frame story of Shahrazad and the king closely resembles that of Masudi’s ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ and is clearly taken from it. Several other tales in The Thousand and One Nights seem to have been taken or derived in some degree from Hazar Afsaneh, for parallels to these stories are found in Indian and Persian folklore. These tales were further adapted by the Arab storytellers to suit local surroundings. Over the centuries, more stories, mainly from Cairo and Baghdad were added, as were local folktales.

The Thousand and One Nights first caught the attention of the western world when Antoine Galland translated it into French as Mille et Une Nuits, which was published in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717. Galland was not a faithful translator, and adapted many of the tales to suit the European palate. Nevertheless, his translation, which had attained instant popularity, was further translated into several European languages almost immediately. In 1706-08 appeared the first English translation; by an unknown writer, it is known as the Grub Street version, and was a translation of Galland’s French translation. More than a hundred years were to pass before a direct translation from the Arabic was attempted: in 1838, Henry Torrens published first fifty stories. This was followed, between 1839 and 1841, by E.W. Lane’s translation in three volumes, the tales suitably censored for polite society. The first complete translation, by John Payne, appeared between 1882-4, in nine volumes, and in 1885-6 was published Richard Burton’s translation in ten volumes. Though these later English versions served to make the stories of The Thousand and One Nights hugely popular, like Galland, their translators took huge liberties with the original, changing the text and adding or subtracting from it to please their own or contemporary sensibilities.

A more recent English translation, The Arabian Nights by Husain Haddawy (1990), based on a 14th century Syrian manuscript, does far more justice to the tales.

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