Arabian Nights

Estimate

600 - 900 GBP

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Description

The Alif Laila or Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night... edited by W.H. MacNaghten. Calcutta: W. Thacker and Co., and London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1839-1842
Paper

ARABIC EDITION (see footnote), 4 volumes, large 8vo (242 x 150mm.), Arabic text throughout apart from additional titles in English in each vol. and 4pp. subscribers' list in vol.4, contemporary morocco gilt by Hering, gilt edges, spines rubbed

Catalogue Note

This edition, printed in Calcutta at the Baptist Mission Press, is described as "now, for the first time, published complete in the original Arabic, from an Egyptian manuscript brought to India by the late Major Turner Macan, editor of the Shah-Nameh" (title).

MacNaghten, the editor of the work, was described by Emily Eden as "clever and pleasant, speaks Persian rather more fluently than English; Arabic better than Persian; but, for familiar conversation, rather prefers Sanscrit" (quoted in ODNB), but is perhaps better remembered for his role in the loss of Kabul in 1841, where he was killed, and the subsequent disastrous British retreat to Jalalabad.