The Oriental Story Book: A Collection of Tales

The book opens with Queen Phantasie, ruler of the realm of Fantasy, watching her daughter Märchen weep because humanity has grown too skeptical to believe in wonder anymore. So Märchen descends to Earth, dressed in magic, to restore joy to the children of the world. But the real enchantment lies in what follows: a desert caravan led by the mysterious merchant Selim Baruch, who beguiles his fellow travelers with story after story. One tale concerns a caliph who undergoes a most extraordinary transformation. Another spins through enchanted palaces and cunning djinn. The frame itself is the wonder, a book about the very power of books, about why humans need fairy tales and where they go when the world stops believing in them. Hauff, writing in 1820s Germany, crafted these Eastern-influenced stories with the knowing wink of a author who understood that every tale is both entertainment and instruction, both escape and return.