Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights) Volume 13 (Supplemental Nights)

The Supplemental Nights are the final treasure chest in Richard Francis Burton's monumental translation of the Arabian Nights, containing tales that didn't appear in earlier editions. Here you'll find stories of jinn and sorcerers, clever slaves outwitting masters, merchants encountering the miraculous, and lovers separated by treachery reunited by stratagem. The frame narrative remains: Shahrazad, condemned to die by her murderous husband Shahryar, keeps herself alive by telling him stories that end on the edge of suspense, each tale spawning another until one thousand and one nights have passed and the king has forgotten his bloodlust. Burton's English is deliberately archaic, stuffed with Victorian verbosity and explicit content the original Arabic scholars considered too racy for publication. This volume matters because these Supplemental tales represent decades of Burton's fieldwork across the Islamic world, gathered from manuscripts and oral tradition. They are the last pieces of a puzzle that has been assembling for over a millennium, and they shimmer with the same dark enchantment that has captivated readers since the caliphs of Baghdad first heard them.