Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 1.djvu/13



Library Edition of Sir Richard Burton's Translation of "The Arabian Nights" has been printed with a close and careful collation of his own copy of the original issue, and all his corrections and additional notes have been inserted.

In dealing with certain gross passages in the text and with a few of the translator's "anthropological" notes, I have borne in mind that the Book is not only a classic but also a scientific and ethnographical work, and that therefore greater latitude of expression is properly allowable than would be the case with a mere story book of to-day.

In Lady Burton's edition, which was a reprint of the first ten volumes only of the original issue, it was thought advisable to omit no fewer than 215 pages; in this edition, which comprises the whole sixteen volumes (the entire work), more than four-fifths of these omitted passages have been restored.

These few omissions are also rendered necessary by the pledge which Sir Richard gave to his Subscribers that no cheaper edition of the entire work should be issued; but in all other respects the original text has been reproduced with scrupulous fidelity.

The reader has here, therefore, the most complete English edition of The Nights that can ever be published, the extreme grossness of the few words and passages omitted absolutely precluding their appearance. It cannot, however, be reasonably said that these slight excisions in any way damage the Book;