The Arabian Nights - Maxfield Parrish - Kate Douglas Wiggan - First Edition Children's Books - Vintage Book, 1940s

The Arabian Nights edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A Smith, and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.

Edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A Smith. Illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. Reprint, 1945. Charles Scribner's.

PREFACE

"Nowhere in the whole realm of literature will you find such a Marvel, such a Wonder, such a Nonesuch of a book; nowhere will you find impossibilities so real and so convincing; nowhere but in what Henley calls:

"...that blessed brief
Of what is gallantest and best
In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romances
The Book of rocs,
Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,
Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and Calenders,
and ghouls, and genies - O so huge
They might have overed the tall Minster Tower.
Hands down, as schoolboys take a post;
In truth the Book of Caralzaman, Schemselniar and Sinbad, Sheherazade
The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,
Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,
And Caspan, and the dim, terrifoc bulk-
Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in speels and storms -
of Kaf ... That centre of miracles
The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights"

Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856 - 1923) was an American children's book author, still remembered for writing Rebecca of Sonnybrook Farm and pioneering kindergarten education.

The history of The Arabian Nights begins over a thousand years ago with a small collection of fantastic tales of Indian and Persian origin that were adopted and added to, and largely overwritten, by many Arabic, Greek, Jewish, and Turkish authors over many centuries. In 1704 Antoine Galland translated the One Thousand and One Nights, as it was known historically, into French, and added new stories we know well today, including Aladdin's Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. An English translation appeared in 1706 titled The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, which is still the more popular title for most English-language texts.

In the main, or "frame", story, the Sultan Shahryar discovers that his wife has been unfaithful, and after dispatching with her, disillusioned by all women, runs through a succession of virgin brides, hundreds of years before Henry VIII. Then, Sheherazade, much loved daughter of his vizier, who was responsible for choosing the brides, volunteers to marry the Sultan. On their wedding night, Sheherazade begins to weave a rich story so compelling, and unfinished, that he lets her live one more night so that she can finish the story. The following night she concludes the story and begins a new one while leaving the conclusion for the next night. And so it goes for 1,001 nights.

This edition is special for the illustrations by Maxfield Parrish (1870 - 1966), an early 20th century pioneer of American illustration remembered for richly colored dream worlds, such as Daybreak, The Lantern Bearers, and the memorable work he did for this edition of The Arabian Nights.

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Condition*: Good. Lacks dust jacket, as issued. Blue cloth cover boards with illustrated pastedown on front. Cover boards are shelf worn and dampstained along the front fore edge. The top left corner of the pastedown is scuffed, and there's a small chip in the lower left. The spine is worn and there are two small insect holes on the upper edge, and small, narrow strips of cloth binding are torn at the head and tail. Inside, the hinge is cracked between the front and back endpapers, and the original owner's name is written in pencil on the front flyleaf, with the number "45", and back endpaper. A label from the original bookseller - Kendrick Bellamy, Denver - is in the top left corner of the back endpaper. The spine and hinges are intact and strong, and the pages are clean.

* Based on Guidelines of the Independent Online Booksellers' Association.