Scheherazade (13)

"What is this compared with what I shall tell you

tomorrow night if the king spares me and lets me live?"

The following books will introduce you to Scheherazade, who said these words in The Arabian Nights (Haddawy trans.).

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The Arabian Nights (Husain Haddawy, Trans.; Everyman's Library). New York: Knopf, 1990.
- The best available translation, in modern English but still preserving an exotic mood, this book includes the frame story in which Scheherazade begins telling tales to prolong her life, along with the core stories of the original collection. Haddawy's historical introduction is invaluable.
The Arabian Nights Entertainments of The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (Sir Richard Francis Burton, Trans.). Modern Library, 1997.
- Burton's translation made the Nights famous in the West and Burton himself notorious for his prurient rendering of sexual episodes in the stories.
Farwell, Byron. Burton: A Biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton. Penguin, 1990.
- Burton's own adventurous life could be strung out into many nights of ribald storytelling.

Rice, Edward. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. New York: Scribner's, 1990.
- Another fine biography of this Victorian rebel, including his translation of the Arabian Nights.