Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/290

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This new volume issued by Mr. Clouston is a worthy successor to the Bakhtyār Nāma and the Book of Sindibād. Like them it has been issued to subscribers only; and its contents are chiefly, like theirs, reprints of translations now become rare of genuine Oriental tales. One of the stories, however, is presented for the first time to an English reader, having been translated from the Tamil at Mr. Clouston's suggestion by Natésa Sástrí, who is already known to Folklore students by his collection of Folktales from Southern India, and by his version of the Madanakámará jankadai, a Tamil romance. The introduction lays before us a short account of the tales comprised in the body of the work, with some bibliographical information which might perhaps have been rendered a little more complete. This is not of much importance, except in the case of the Persian stories which conclude the work, because the edition is in other respects so good that it will doubtless supersede the older ones both for scientific and literary purposes. The Persian stories, we are told, are a selection of a selection published in English by Mr. Edward Rehatsek at Bombay as recently as 1871, from the Persian work Mahbúh ul-Kalúb, under the title of Amusing Stories. Now here, we confess, we should like to have had a more complete account of the volume called Amusing Stories, which would certainly have been useful to students. To expect full particulars of the Persian original would be beyond the mark; but the samples which are given us are such as to lead us to hope that some scholar may ere long give the Western world a complete version of it.