Page:Supplemental Nights to the book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume 1.djvu/13

 THE TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD.

offering my cordial thanks to friends and subscribers who have honoured "" (Kama Shastra Society) with their patronage and approbation, I would inform them that my "'Anthropological Notes " are by no means exhausted, and that I can produce a complete work only by means of a somewhat extensive Supplement. I therefore propose to print (not publish), for private circulation only, five volumes, bearing title—

SUPPLEMENTAL NIGHTS

TO THE BOOK OF

THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT.

This volume and its successor (Nos. i. and ii.) contain Mr. John Payne's Tales from the Arabic; his three tomes, being included in my two. The stories are taken from the Breslau Edition where they are distributed among the volumes between Nos. iv. and xii., and from the Calcutta fragment of 1814. I can say little for the style of the story-stuff contained in this Breslau text, which has been edited with phenomenal incuriousness. Many parts are hopelessly corrupted, whilst at present we have no means of amending the commissions and of supplying the omissions by comparison with other manuscripts. The Arabic